


how would you feel, if i told you i loved you?

by flashlightinacave, magnetichearts



Series: in any version of reality, i'd find you and i'd choose you [3]
Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist Fusion, Angst, Banter, Bonding, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, Love Confessions, Musical References, Mutual Pining, Pining, a n y w a y s, and this spiraled lowkey out of control but, coming in strong with those rom-com vibes for b/d as always, fuck i hope i didn't forget to tag anything, iconic shit only, idk what to tell you fam but you know us, lmaoooooo is this a zep au that leila came up with and was a genius fr doing so, um no previous knowledge of zep needed for this, we have like no word count control, whatever, yup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25717303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashlightinacave/pseuds/flashlightinacave, https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetichearts/pseuds/magnetichearts
Summary: “Ben confessed his love for me in a big musical number!” Devi blurts out, grip tightening on her coffee cup and breathing heavily.Eleanor nods. “Go on.”“I mean, he didn’t exactly confess his love for me, he sang that he thinks he loves me and that’s a little bit different, right?” Her voice shakes, like a leaf in the breeze, a tree swaying in a hurricane. “And it’s terrible because I can’t stop thinking about it, El. The way he was smiling, the way his blue eyes just lit up, the way he took my hands and stared into my soul.”or; an mri machine has fucked up devi's life considerably, and the scariest part of it? finding out her long-time nemesis has feelings for her. she's just hoping there's some guidebook on how to handle this (also known as: the zoey's extraordinary playlist fusion no one asked for but we wrote anyways)(title from "how would you feel" by ed sheeran)
Relationships: Ben Gross/Devi Vishwakumar, Paxton Hall-Yoshida/Eleanor Wong
Series: in any version of reality, i'd find you and i'd choose you [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010919
Comments: 30
Kudos: 97





	1. i think i love you so what am i so afraid of?

**Author's Note:**

> lmaoooooo another collab from us who the hell is surprised absolutely no one. anyways y'all we hope you enjoy this again it has all of the tropes. 
> 
> this is a loose zoey's extraordinary playlist fusion, but it's not necessary to have watched the show to understand the premise of this fic, as we explain everything in universe. it also does not follow the plotline of the show beyond the first episode, so you won't be confused. 
> 
> we hope you enjoy this! we both worked hard on it and are excited to post the coming chapters!
> 
> the heart songs used in the chapters will be in the end notes!

Devi has always wished her life was more like a movie, she just wasn’t anticipating it would become one of the musical variety.

She was thinking more the rom-com type, the kind where her long time crush, the illustrious, handsome Paxton Hall-Yoshida, sweeps her off her feet and she finally gets everything she’s dreamed of while still kicking ass at her job. A music filled existence is much more suited to her best friend and neighbor Eleanor, if she’s being honest. 

But life never works out the way you fantasize and while Devi is still excellent at her job, Paxton has no idea who she is, she can now hear the innermost thoughts of her friends, co-workers, and random strangers as extravagant musical numbers,  _ and _ her nemesis is the most annoying person on the planet.

Most annoying person on the planet is by no means an exaggeration, because Ben, her aforementioned nemesis—who’s been a thorn in her side and pain in her ass ever since she started this job as a coder two years ago—is resting his elbows on her desk and trying to get her attention right now. 

“David,” he sing-songs.

Devi snaps her head up, finally giving in to whatever the hell he wants to meet his familiar infuriating smirk. “What?” she bites out, immediately turning her eyes back to the monitor so she can continue coding. She hates that Ben won’t even call her by her real fucking  _ name _ .

“You know that clothing doesn’t have to come from a 25% bin to be worth wearing, right?”

Devi flips him off. “Fuck off, Gross, I’m trying to work.”

“Hmm,” he hums, glancing at her monitor. “I’m not sure if any of the miserable excuses that you call coding can be considered work.” He points at a random spot on her screen and his voice drops in pitch. “There’s an error in that line by the way.” His infuriating smirk is back and Devi rolls her eyes so hard into the back of her skull she’s surprised she hasn’t done any damage.

There isn’t an error in her code, obviously, Ben is just trying to provoke her the same agitating way he always does. She kind of wants to wring her hands around his neck. She scoffs. “Who are you to talk about my fashion sense? You dress like a washed up pretentious asshole.” She cocks her head. “Oh sorry, you don’t just dress like a pretentious asshole, you  _ are _ a pretentious asshole.”

Ben lets out a slight laugh and it’s so fucking infuriating that she balls her hands into fists. She hates that he can get to her in this way. “I know you can come up with a more clever insult than that, David.”

Devi looks back up at him again, leaning back in her chair, and crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re right, I definitely could, you’re just not worth my time.”

She turns back to her monitor, typing in a few more lines of code and smiling slyly herself when she doesn’t hear a response from Ben. It’s always a little invigorating when she gets the last word in their bickering. 

She continues coding, before glancing back again to find Ben is still leaning with his elbows on her desk, only his gaze has turned steely. She’s never seen that much intensity in his eyes, especially not directed right at her, it’s starting to freak her out if she’s being honest.

“What?” she asks, slightly less bitter and angry than earlier.

Ben doesn’t say anything and it’s only when she hears a guitar chord ring out that she realizes what’s about to happen.

_ Oh, fuck, not him too. _

She knew she was going to hear a song pertaining to her nemesis’ internal thoughts eventually, but that doesn’t mean she wants to. She has coding to get done and though she knows time stops when someone sings to her, it’s still annoying. She doesn’t want to hear Ben sing about his internal problems or desires, she doesn’t give a crap about his issues.

Regardless, he’s singing now and she can’t stop it. She doesn’t recognize the song yet, but she can’t seem to tear her eyes away from him.

So she watches Ben: watches him spin on the balls of his feet, watches him perform strange choreography that she wishes she could make fun of—and she would if he actually knew he was singing to her—and she watches him sing—which sue her, he is surprisingly good at.

_ “I think I love you.” _

Oh fuck. 

Fuck fuck fuck. 

This  _ cannot _ be happening right now.

Devi’s eyes bug out as she stares at Ben, her mouth dropping agape, as he steps towards her, and then he’s grabbing her hands and pulling her onto her feet. She really, really, really should shove him away, running the fuck out of the building until he’s finished his song. Except, she’s never done that before, she doesn’t exactly know what the consequences would be of running out on someone singing to her, and she isn’t eager to find out now.

So she stands, frozen, paralyzed more accurately as he continues to sing, not able to move even an inch as he pulls her across the floor of their workplace, one of his arms winding around her waist. His smile is so bright and clear and his eyes are so impossibly blue and perhaps that’s more terrifying than not knowing what would happen if she ran out on him singing.

Blue is so often a dangerous color, used by frogs to alert a predator of poison through aposematism, used by the human body to convey dehydration or a lack of oxygen, but those things pale in comparison, pale in danger, to the way Ben’s blue, blue eyes are staring at her right now. His blue eyes make her think of a lighthouse in a storm, because in nature, blue is both a beacon and a warning all at once. They suck her in, yet captivate her, like a vortex, like a whirlpool, like something inescapable and treacherous.

Then suddenly, his hand—which is unfairly fucking warm—is stroking her cheek and his singing quiets and for a split second Devi thinks he might actually be singing  _ to her _ , rather than what she knows the reality is—that he doesn’t know he’s singing at all. 

(The most terrifying thing is she kind of wishes he was actually singing to her, that he was doing this by choice, rather than because of her weird, new, unwanted ability.)

She dismisses the thought with the shake of her head and blinks and the minute she does, she’s sitting back in her chair and Ben is still resting his elbows on her desk, grinning up at her—the same grin from when he was singing,  _ fuck _ —impossibly smug.

Seriously, who the  _ fuck _ decided it was good for her, quite possible the most unemotionally available person on the planet, to have these powers? 

She knows she’s staring and she can’t even pull her eyes away until Ben calls her out for it. “I always knew you were obsessed with me, David, but ogling my perfectly toned body seems a little much, even for you.”

“Fuck off, Gross,” Devi grumbles, giving him her most menacing scowl and when he finally, finally walks away and leaves her alone, she faceplants her head into her desk and groans.

* * *

Devi scours the internet and local libraries, but to her dismay, she discovers there is no guide on what to do when your nemesis of two years confesses that they’re in love with you, despite not actually knowing that they are confessing in the first place.

So she isn’t quite sure how to act around Ben. It’s impossible to jump right back into their teasing, snarking, rivalry now that she knows what she knows, so she stops talking to him completely.

(She can’t even look him in the eyes without thinking about how blue they were, without thinking about how they lit up when he was singing to her. She can’t look at him without thinking about how beautiful his smile was. Her stomach does a weird flip whenever she thinks about it.)

Her change in behavior is, unfortunately, something everyone notices. 

Ben confronts her about it immediately and without hesitation as she makes her way back to her desk from a meeting. Usually, meetings involve her and Ben sniping at each other endlessly, much to the annoyance of everyone else in the office, but today when Ben provoked her, Devi didn’t even look up in his direction. She kept her eyes trained on her pad of paper which she furiously covered in notes while Fabiola was outlining the team’s next project.

Ben makes his presence very known by stepping in front of her, causing her to nearly collide with him. She nearly trips over her own feet, only remaining upright when one of his hands catches her wrist and other winds arounds her back, pressing into the small of her back firmly.

And fuck, she’s so, so close to him and she’s staring into his eyes and what the  _ fuck _ is happening right now?

He lets go a split second later—her body feeling burned by his touch—not moving from the spot where he’s planted himself in front of her, a confused yet simultaneously furious expression on his face. “What the hell, David?”

Devi doesn’t even look up at him, pointing her gaze to the floor. She can’t look into those eyes again without thinking about him holding her hands, him stroking her cheek, him singing those words, him— 

“I said, what the hell, Devi?”

At the use of her real name, Devi’s head snaps up and she finally looks at Ben again. She still doesn’t speak, and she hopes her silence is enough for him to leave her alone.

“Why didn’t you compete with me today?” he seethes, clearly not getting her message.

Devi swallows roughly. “I—I—”

She swears concern flicks across his face before he’s looking at her angrily again. “Did you have a stroke or something?”

Fuck, she can’t do this, she can’t talk to him, not now that she knows what she knows.

The anger in Ben’s expression is gone, replaced with concern. “Did  _ I _ do something?” 

(He did, but she can never ever, ever tell him what and fix what they broke.)

She clears her throat. “I—uh—I need to get back to work.”

She steps around him, worried for a split second that he might move to block her—but fortunately he doesn’t, he just remains frozen in place—and makes her way back to her desk, collapsing in her seat. 

Her stalemate—as she’s taken to calling this weird situation she’s ended up in—with Ben lasts another week before it starts affecting the quality of her work. Not in any significant way, it’s just usually with Ben’s competition, they both are the two fastest, most efficient coders in the office. But with the spark of their rivalry fading away—because Devi can’t even so much as glance in Ben’s direction without vividly being transported back to the moment he sang her—she works through projects more slowly.

She still codes faster than the rest of her co-workers, but any timelines worked out for ongoing projects were worked out with her competitive coding speed, not this new slightly slower speed, which is a problem.

So it doesn’t come as a surprise when Fabiola calls Devi into her office at the end of the week, gesturing for her to sit.

Devi takes the seat and glances around the office nervously. She can already tell this meeting hasn’t been called to sing her praises and she’s a little crushed that she already knows she’s let her boss down. Fabiola is one of her role models, she’s one of the last people Devi wants to disappoint.

“Are you okay?” Fabiola asks, finally breaking the silence.

Devi looks up at her boss, not finding the annoyance she expected. Fabiola just looks concerned. “I’m fine,” Devi lies.

Fabiola leans forward in her chair. “Are you sure? You haven’t been getting through your assigned projects nearly as quickly.” She laces her hands in front of her. “Ben hasn’t been getting through his assignments as quickly either and I’ve noticed the two of you have stopped competing. And, normally, while I thought I would be glad you two aren’t screaming your heads off at each other in the middle of my meetings, I didn’t think it would affect your work.”

Devi swallows roughly, eyes darting between the decorations on Fabiola’s wall and her boss. 

“I—Is that a bad thing?”

“Look,” Fabiola says more seriously. “You two are my best coders, and while you’re both still doing amazing work, I really need you both back on your A-Game.” Her eyes fill with concern again. “Did he do something to you?”

“No!” Devi yells out immediately. Because he didn’t, not intentionally and Devi knows that. Devi knows she was never supposed to find out how Ben felt about her. He’d been perfectly subtle before he sang to her, she never would have guessed on her own. She only found out because of her stupid new power. Her stupid new invasive power that was more a nuisance than an ability.

“Devi,” Fabiola says kindly. “You can talk to me, I care about you.”

“You’re my boss, you’re supposed to say stuff like that,” Devi answers meekly, turning her eyes to the floor.

“Yeah, but I—wanted to be friends with my employees.”

Devi glances up at Fabiola again and finds her expression is completely earnest. “Why me?”

Fabiola huffs a laugh. “Because you’re super smart and brilliant and we work with mostly white guys.”

Devi smiles slightly. “Thanks, Fab.” 

Fabiola smiles. “Of course.” Her gaze sharpens and Devi thinks she looks a little terrifying. “Did he?”

“No,” Devi says, shaking her head. “Ben may be a dick, but he’s not a bad guy.”

“Alright,” Fabiola says, raising a hand. “But I do need you to figure this out because we have to get the coding for the watch finished next week. Can you do that?”

In truth, Devi doesn’t know if she can, she doesn’t ever know if things can quite go back to normal now that she knows what she knows. But for Fabiola, for her job, she has to try.

Devi nods her head. “I can do that.”

Fabiola smiles. “Good.” She waves a hand. “You’re dismissed.”

Devi stands up from the chair and steps out of Fabiola’s office. She makes her way back to her desk and Ben’s eyes flick up to meet hers. She feels genuinely bad, acting so weird around Ben when he doesn’t even know why, but she can’t help it. Freaking musical numbers, Devi isn’t quite so sure how she feels about them (or him) anymore.

* * *

Devi finds out she is one of the least subtle people on the planet when Eleanor calls her out on her weird behavior while they’re getting coffee.

She’s been off at work since Ben sang to her—it’s a bit unavoidable—but she thought she’d done a good job keeping those complicated emotions out of her personal life. But according to the knowing look on Eleanor’s face as she daintily sips her vanilla macchiato, Devi knows she’s failed.

Eleanor sets down her drink and regards Devi with suspicion. “You’ve been acting weird lately.”

Devi snorts. “I’ve not been weird.” Her hands shake as she takes a sip of her hot chocolate that she asked the barista to label latte.

Eleanor shakes her head and clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “No, you have.”

“Eleanor,” Devi grumbles.

“Devi.” Eleanor tilts her head and rests a comforting hand on her arm. “You can talk to me, you know?”

She’s been carrying around this big secret for about a week now, and it’s beginning to eat away at her, so it’s at that singular gesture that Devi’s floodgates burst open. 

“Ben confessed his love for me in a big musical number!” she blurts out, grip tightening on her coffee cup and breathing heavily.

Eleanor nods. “Go on.”

“I mean, he didn’t exactly confess his love for me, he sang that he  _ thinks _ he loves me and that’s a little bit different, right?” Her voice shakes, like a leaf in the breeze, a tree swaying in a hurricane. “And it’s terrible because I can’t stop thinking about it, El. The way he was smiling, the way his blue eyes just lit up, the way he took my hands and stared into my soul.” 

Eleanor takes another sip of her drink. “Mhm.”

“Like, has he always had a smile like  _ that _ ? Where has he been keeping that smile for so long? I mean, I’m used to Ben and his infuriating smirk, but I’ve never seen him smile like that.”

“Continue.”

"He even doesn't need that stupid smirk of his with his stupidly nice smile." She picks at her coffee cup label. "Asshole had to have made a deal with the devil for that smile. It should be illegal, how nice it is. I bet he just uses it to pick up woman and get out of fuck-ups at work. Maybe that's why he never gets in trouble, cause he has that smile." She slams her coffee cup down on the table. “I swear to god this is all probably just some elaborate sick plan of his to throw me off my game.”

Eleanor snorts. “Well, if it is, it’s working.”

“It’s not, El!” Devi protests balling her hands into fists.

“Devi,” Eleanor tuts. “You’ve mentioned his smile 7 times in the last minute. That’s like once every 8.6 seconds or something.”

Devi sighs and drops her head into her hands. “Shit.”

“It all seems a little obvious if you ask me.”

Devi peers up from her hands and takes another sip of her drink. “What does?”

Eleanor props her chin up on her hands. “Have you ever considered that maybe you can’t stop thinking about this because you might have feelings for him too?”

Devi nearly chokes on her hot chocolate. “What the hell, El? Th—that’s ridiculous!” she splutters.

Eleanor taps her finger against her coffee cup. “Hmm,” she hums. “I mean, you never shut up about him.”

“That’s because he consistently makes my life a pain! He’s a huge pain in the ass!”

Eleanor primly sips her drink. “Still an obsession.”

Devi slams her hands down on the table. “I am not obsessed with Ben!”

“I don’t know, Devi,” her friend hums. “I think you really like him.” 

“I don’t like him! I hate him!” 

Eleanor raises an eyebrow, smiling far too smugly for Devi’s comfort. “Hate isn’t the opposite of love. That’s indifference.” 

“Eleanor,” Devi grits out, “I can assure you I am not in love with Ben Gross.” 

“Maybe not yet,” Eleanor says. “But you’re always telling me how annoying he is. You can’t fight with someone every day, hate someone as much as you claim you do with Ben, and not have some other feelings there. Clearly, he’s gotten under your skin.” 

“In a bad way.” 

“Whatever you say.” Eleanor tilts her head. “Is he at least good at singing?”

Devi feels her cheeks heat up and ducks her head. “I—I mean he kind of serenaded me.” 

(Serenaded is a meagre word for it. For the first time in her life, Devi can understand how women got caught up in a guy, especially musicians. The way Ben’s eyes had stared right into her soul, the way his voice had touched the very depths of her heart. She had been unable to focus on anything other than him, the brush of his skin against her own, the way the timbre of his voice wrapped around her body and called her to him.)

Eleanor snickers. “God, I can’t wait to buy the rights to this and turn it into a musical.”

“Eleanor,” Devi grumbles.

“It'd definitely be successful, people would pay good money for this level of drama and denial.”

“Drop it,” Devi growls.

Eleanor raises a hand in surrender. “Okay, okay.” She taps her coffee cup. “Just one more thing, Ben doesn’t seem like the singing type, from what you’ve told me, and you said he serenaded you? Doesn’t seem like his style.”

Devi knows she’s blushing fully now. “Right,” she says, clearing her throat. “There’s another thing I forgot to mention.”

Eleanor raises an eyebrow, awaiting Devi’s response.

“Remember how I got that MRI to make sure I don’t have what my dad had?”

Eleanor nods her head.

“Well, I’m not sick—thank god, but something else weird happened.”

Eleanor sips her drink. “Go on.”

“I—uh—seem to have developed this ability to hear people’s internal thoughts through—uh—musical numbers.”

Eleanor snorts. “Now I really want to turn your life into a musical.”

“You believe me?” Devi asks quietly. “You don’t think that sounds absolutely ridiculous?”

Eleanor smiles softly. “Of course I believe you, Devi. You’re my best friend.” She drums her fingers against the table. “So tell me more about this power.”

“Well,” Devi says, folding her hands and resting them atop the table. “From what I’ve seen so far, time seems to stop when I hear these songs, so no one else knows I’m hearing them. The person singing doesn’t know they are singing to me. And the songs seem to be focused on people’s innermost thoughts and desires and problems.”

Eleanor claps her hands together. “Oooh! You know what you should call them?”

“What, El?”

“Heart songs!”

Devi raises an eyebrow. “Heart songs, really?”

“Well, yeah. Ben was singing to you from his heart!”

Devi holds up a hand. “But Ben isn’t the only person I’ve heard sing,” she protests.

Eleanor rolls her eyes. “Fine, they’re all singing to you from their hearts, Devi. It’s the perfect name.”

“Fine,” Devi agrees. “Heart songs it is.” She swallows. “You’re also the only person I’ve told about this so far.”

She swears her friend’s eyes sparkle in the sunlight. “Oh! I can be your musical guide, interpreting the songs, telling you what they mean.” Eleanor rubs her hands together gleefully. “This is gonna be fun.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Devi mumbles.

She sips her hot chocolate, feeling slightly more at ease, enjoying the companionable silence stretching between her and Eleanor. She feels a bit lighter, a bit freer, no longer having to bear this burden on her own.

After a couple minutes, Eleanor breaks silence, glancing at Devi with worry. “So what are you going to do about Ben?”

Devi sighs and shakes her head, the dread that’s been ever present for the past week steadily refilling her. “I have fucking no idea.”

* * *

For sure, the worst part about having your nemesis—she’s twenty-five and has a nemesis, by the way, like, how much more immature can she  _ get? _ —confess their potential love for you without even knowing they’ve done so is how it fucks up all the other romantic entanglements in your life. 

(Well. If you can call the non-existent relationship her and Paxton Hall-Yoshida have a romantic entanglement. Right now it’s more of a romantic mirage, for how real it is.) 

Because the worst part is before, she could look over at Paxton and lose herself in the perfect cut of his body, the impressive line of his jaw, but now, every time she so much as  _ thinks _ about glancing in his direction, Ben’s ridiculously, impossibly blue eyes flash in front of her. 

Also, side note: why the  _ fuck _ does Ben have to have such beautiful blue eyes? She’s like, 89% sure (still hasn’t conducted a full field study, however) that she wouldn’t be having this problem if he had like, brown or gray eyes.

Ugh, whatever, she’s getting sidetracked. The point is, these stupid fucking feelings that Ben has, or, at least,  _ thinks _ he has, are confusing the hell out of her because—well, it’s not  _ fair. _ She shouldn’t  _ have _ to feel guilty about pursuing Paxton now that she knows how Ben feels. 

Seriously, she doesn’t like Ben, so why is she feeling like this? 

(Because she’s not a horrible person, and to toss Ben’s feelings aside as if they’re not there and to pretend she doesn’t know about them is...vicious, even for her.) 

The thing is, if Devi hadn’t heard Ben’s heart song, she wouldn’t  _ know _ about his feelings for her. He doesn’t act any different whatsoever—well, at least, not any  _ weirder. _ She’s been surreptitiously studying his behavior for the past week, and while he’s been weirded out by  _ her, _ beyond that, he acts like the same old Ben as always. 

Devi groans, resisting the urge to collapse onto her desk. “Stupid MRI machine,” she grumbles. 

“What was that, David?” Ben quips, glancing over at her. 

Idly, Devi wonders why Fabiola thinks it’s a good idea to have their coding desks ten feet away from one another. She doesn’t deign him with a response, instead choosing to turn back to her screen, but it’s nearly impossible for her to focus on anything. 

Every time she closes her eyes, she sees his blue eyes, or, even worse, she feels his hand run down her cheek and her entire body feels hot, flush, like she’s blushing head to toe. 

“Stay on task,” Devi mutters. “Hot guy at work. Remember that.” 

“You know, talking to yourself is a sign of dementia, David. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been finding more errors in your code, lately.” 

Devi just barely manages to stop herself from gnashing her teeth together, shoving back the urge to strangle Ben as well. Who was the guy that sang to her and looked at her like she was the moon? This was just more proof the heart songs tended to blow things out of proportion. 

He’s not wrong, though. She  _ has _ been slipping up more than usual, not enough for anyone else to notice, but—Ben isn’t just  _ anyone. _ He’s the smartest person she’s ever met (besides herself) and, apparently, he might be in love with her, so there’s probably an inherent obsession built in there. 

“Shut the fuck up, Gross,” she mutters. 

Ben blinks in surprise, clearly thrown off by the fact that she’s speaking to him. He recovers annoyingly easy, though, and a smug smile crosses his face. “I’ll admit, David, part of me thought you were silent this whole week because you had an amazing insult coming my way, but that’s not the case.” 

“Leave me the fuck alone, Ben,” she groans, suddenly too tired to put up with his bullshit. “Please. Not today.” 

She doesn’t really expect Ben to listen to her, because, well, he’s a douchebag, so she’s surprised to glance over and find him back at work, staring intently at a piece of paper, and scribbling something down. 

He’s looking at it with laser-like intensity, and unbidden, a smile comes to her lips at the sight. Ben’s always been weirdly intense about everything, wholly consumed by his work or—or singing to her, so seeing him like this, quintessential Ben, is more entertaining than she wants to admit. He bites his lower lip, chewing on it as he marks another thing down, and she wants him to stop doing that so his lips aren’t chapped. She doesn’t want to kiss someone with chapped lips. 

_ Uh, what the fuck? _

Never mind  _ that, _ she doesn’t want to kiss Ben. 

Devi nearly whimpers, because as soon as she thinks about it, she can’t  _ not _ think about it. What would have happened if, in the heart song, he had leaned in a little closer? Would she have pulled him in even more? 

Her gaze drifts down to his mouth, and despite worrying about him having chapped lips, they look really, really soft, from here. And she doesn’t think this is possible, because Ben isn’t like, truly good at anything, but she bets he’s a good kisser. If only because he has soft lips. 

Holy fucking hell, what was  _ wrong _ with her? She needed to stop thinking like this about Ben and start focusing on Paxton. Paxton, with beautiful hazel eyes and Adonis like muscles. Paxton, with curly brown hair and a jawline to die for. 

(Paxton, who she really didn’t know anything about.) 

Fuck this, she decides, abruptly, standing up from her desk. She was going to march over there and ask Paxton Hall-Yoshida on a date, and she wasn’t going to leave without yes for an answer. 

Devi smooths down her shirt, running her hands through her hair to make sure it falls properly, and makes her way over to Paxton’s desk, which, as marketing associate, is in the far left corner of the floor. 

She works up her nerves, but, weirdly, is not that hard, she’s a bit less nervous about this than she thought she would be, and makes her way over to the marketing section of the floor. 

As she approaches, however, she hears the beginning strains of music to waft out, and she very nearly groans and runs from the building right then and there. 

“Oh, again?” she sighs. “Seriously?” 

She glances around, looking for the source of the music. It sounds like a guy singing, that much she can pinpoint, so she continues to follow it. She can get back to the whole Paxton situation as soon as she figures out  _ who _ the hell is singing. 

It only takes her another ten seconds, though, and then she’s staring in shock as Paxton Hall-Yoshida runs a hand through his hair and sings in his empty little cubicle. 

She knows the song that is playing, a sadder song, and she wonders, briefly, what Paxton could be sad about? He’s so hot. 

Then she winces, as a few more of the lyrics come into play. Restless dreams of walking alone and people talking without listening—this is about loneliness. 

She lets the song fade out, finish, wondering what it was that made Paxton feel so lonely. 

Devi’s not the most emotionally sound human being on the planet, not by a long shot, but even she can recognize when someone’s in pain. And she can’t just sit here and not  _ do _ anything about it. Even if it’s her office crush. 

So, she steps inside and raps on the door. “Hello?” 

Paxton looks up at her, exhaustion marring his face for a split second before a smooth, varnished veneer of indifference overtakes it. “Yes?” he says back. 

Devi swallows roughly and steps a bit further in, linking her hands together. They shake, a bit uncontrollably. “Hi, I’m Devi Vishwakumar.” 

At his blank stare, she rushes to clarify. “I work as a coder on the floor? I was the one who caught the bug in the software update for the messaging app last year?” When none of that pulls a reaction out of him, she sighs. “I was also the girl who ended up tripping over the extension cord and sending the punch bowl flying onto the fake tree at the Christmas party last year, lighting it on fire?” 

Recognition flashes in his eyes at that. “Oh, right. I remember.” He leans forward, looking up at her. “So, what do you need?” 

“Uh,” Devi says. She wishes, desperately, that there was a place to sit down, but there’s not, so she just lifts her head up and summons all the courage she can. “I wanted to ask you something.” 

“I don’t date coworkers,” he says, cutting her off smoothly. “It gets too complicated.” 

Devi’s eyes grow in horror. “Oh, no, no, that’s not what I wanted.” 

(Well, it  _ was, _ at one point. She’s not even sure if she wants that anymore, though.) 

“I don’t sleep with coworkers either,” he adds. “That also gets too complicated, and usually ends with you trashing my office.” He glances cooly around the room. “I just got a new desk.” 

“This isn’t about that!” she blurts out. 

As this, the first flicker of shock runs through Paxton’s eyes. “It’s not?” He tilts his head, frowning. “What do you want?” 

Devi shifts a bit, suddenly uncomfortable. It makes sense, she thinks, why Paxton was singing about loneliness. If his almost smooth, rehearsed responses to her questions were any indication, it was obvious people had only seen him as worthy for one thing his whole life, wanted one thing from him. 

(She wanted that one thing from him, previously, and now guilt coils up in her gut when she thinks about it.)

“I, uh, I wanted to see if you wanted to get drinks after work,” she says. 

His eyes narrow. “I thought you said you  _ didn’t _ want to date me.” 

“Not as a date!” she laughs. She offers him a genuine smile and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “No just as—as friends.” 

He drums his fingers on the desk, staring at her. She’s aware it’s a bit performative, but it still fills her with unease. “Friends,” he repeats, as if the concept is foreign to him. 

Devi nods. “Yeah. I’ve been working here for two years and I still feel like I don’t know anyone here, not really. Especially in marketing.” She clasps her hands behind her back and raises herself up on the balls of her feet before settling back down again. “I’ll pay,” she adds. 

At this, a small, genuine smile crosses Paxton’s face, fleeting, and tiny, but there. “You’ll pay?” 

She nods. “Just don’t like, order the most expensive scotch in the bar, or something.” 

The smile reappears, and this time, it stays. “I like scotch, so we’ll see.” 

Devi smiles back. “Uh, do you want to meet at Lee’s at 6 tonight?” 

Paxton nods. “Sounds good.” He turns back to his desk, and Devi knows she’s been dismissed, but she doesn’t care. She hops out of the room, a bit happy she’s accomplished her task, and she’s helping someone else. 

(The heart songs are annoying as hell, but she likes helping people. That’s the only good thing that’s come out of this. Well, that, and Ben’s feelings.) 

Wait, what? They’re not a good thing. They’re an annoying thing. 

Still, she can’t help but glance over at him as she walks back to her desk, sneaking a peek at him. He looks the same as always, and yet, her gut twists with—with something when his blue eyes flicker up to meet hers. 

Instead of saying something, like she’d expected, he just drops his gaze back to his work, a mask of indifference still on his face. She can actually see people’s emotions, through music, but now, she has no idea what he’s feeling. 

Devi settles herself back in her chair and tries not to stare at Ben, but she can’t help the way her eyes flicker over to him every few seconds. She’s got to do something about this, doesn’t she? 

Fuck. Yeah, she does. 

* * *

Devi decides the best way to approach this—situation, she decides to call it—with Ben, is to become his friend. 

It might seem rather counterintuitive to her goal, to try and become his friend, if she’s, you know, trying to get him to  _ stop _ having feelings for her, but she rationalizes it rather easily.

First, he’s not even certain of his feelings. He  _ did _ say “I think I love you,” and not “I love you,” for which Devi is extraordinarily grateful for, because she’s not sure what she would do then. Second, Devi knows for a  _ fact _ that Ben only thinks he likes her because of who he sees her as, not who she really is. He doesn’t know the real her. He wouldn’t like her like this if he did. 

(She ignores the little twinge that settles itself in her heart when she thinks about this. It’s not a big deal.) 

So, the solution is easy. Be friends with him, discourage him from having feelings for her by showing him who she really is, and then she can go after Paxton all she wants. Cause like, she might not  _ like _ Ben, but she’s not cruel. She’s not vicious. She doesn’t want to break his heart. 

The only problem is she’s not quite sure how to  _ start _ being friends with him. It would be weird, really weird, if she just walked up to him one day and asked him to get drinks after work. They’ve not fallen back into their routine of bickering and bantering, yet, but Ben’s largely just left her alone. 

Devi plots and plans and for a few days, trying to figure out a fairly decent way to get to spend a bit more time with Ben, but eventually, at the end of the day, it’s Fabiola who works things out. 

It’s a Monday when Fabiola steps out of her office and over towards Devi’s group, a clipboard clutched in her hands. 

Devi looks up as she approaches the group, dressed in an impeccable suit, as always. 

Fab’s who she wants to be when she grows up, she thinks, and then, with a startle, Devi realizes she and Fabiola are the same age, and resists the urge to smack her head against the edge of her glass desk. 

Devi blinks a few times and focuses on Fabiola’s words. “Ok, everyone,” she says, stepping in front of the group. 

The rest of the coders turn away from their desks to face Fabiola. “We’ve got a big problem with the watch.” 

She watches Ben’s brow furrow as he steeples his fingers together and purses his lips, and then realizes she’s staring at him without a care in the world. Dragging her gaze back to Fabiola, she listens. “Turns out the watch isn’t calibrating with the phones our clients have, and the messaging system is broken. It’s a challenging thing to fix, so I’m gonna need a few coders willing to stay late pretty much every day for the rest of this week and fix it. I’ll start picking people, but first, any volunteers?” 

This is it. This is her chance. 

“Ben and I will do it,” Devi says, immediately.

Ben’s head snaps around to her, his mouth dropping open slightly. 

Fabiola raises an eyebrow. “You both? Work  _ together _ on this? Are you sure, Devi?” 

She nods. “Yeah. You said you needed to get this done. We’re your best coders. We can put our differences aside.” 

His jaw clenches when she says this, eyes darkening. He’s irritated, she recognizes. 

“Ben?” Fabiola asks, turning to him. “Devi’s not wrong. The work would go by quickest with you two, if you didn’t kill each other by the end of it. Are you up for it?” 

He drums his fingers on his desk back and forth a few times, clearly considering it. “Yeah,” he says, after what feels like an eternity. “Of course, Fab. Anything you need.” 

Fabiola nods. “Excellent. I expect you to start working on this now. Good luck, guys.” 

She walks away, and Devi turns to look over at Ben, a bright smile on her face, but she freezes when she sees he’s turned away from her and won’t look in her direction. 

Frowning, she stands up, walking over to him and planting her hands on his desk, so he knows she’s there. 

He still doesn’t look at her, still doesn’t take those brilliantly blue eyes—when did she start knowing just how blue his eyes were?—off his monitor screen. “What’s your problem, Gross?” she snaps. 

Ben taps away at his keyboard, still ignoring her. “No problem.” 

Devi snarls, reaching down and yanking his keyboard away from him so he has to face her. “There’s a definite problem. What, do you suddenly find me repulsive?” 

He sighs, leaning back in his chair and finally looking her in the eyes. Devi feels her stomach twist as they lock on her. 

(Suddenly, she is looking into his eyes as he holds her hands and tells her how he feels, she is looking into his eyes as he strokes a hand down her cheek and makes her heart pound.)

“I don’t know how I should act around you, Devi,” he finally says.

She blinks. “What?” 

“You’re hot and cold. One day, you’re fighting with me like normal, and then suddenly, you’re pulling away from me completely, you won’t even argue with me, and now, you want to work on a project with me? What do you want?” He leans forward, looking tired. “I’m not sure where I stand, with you, and I don’t want you to keep jerking me around like this. Tell me what you want.” 

Devi swallows. He’s—he’s got a point. She  _ has _ been jerking him around, rather unfairly. 

“I don’t really know,” she admits, because it’s the closest thing to the truth, and she and Ben have never lied to each other. It’s the one thing they haven’t done, lie (or it was, pre-heart songs). “I just—thought it would be better if we tried to get to know each other. We’ve been working together for, what, two years? I thought we could maybe take a shot at being friends.” 

He tilts his head, looking rather like a cat, oddly, narrowing his eyes. “You want to become friends?” 

This is her last moment to back out, to try and make things go back to normal, to try and pursue Paxton without a care for his feelings. 

(But she can’t. As much as she wishes she could, she can’t. She—as much as she doesn’t want to admit it—does care about Ben’s feelings. Devi can’t callously toss him aside and pretend she doesn’t know how he feels.) 

Her hands shake, but she looks him in the eye, and nods. “Yes. I want to try and become friends.” 

Unexpectedly, a smile crosses his face. She hasn’t seen that same smile since he sang to her, bright and open. 

(This smile does something to her, and the only thing she can liken it to is the moment before one goes careening down a rollercoaster, the second where the car tips over the edge but before it succumbs to gravity, a moment of weightlessness, of freedom, her heart raising into her throat.)

“Ok then,” Ben agrees. “I guess we can give it a shot.” 

She grins back at him, feeling, for the first time since this whole thing started, that just maybe, she’s got a little more of it under control.

The first few days they  _ are _ too wrapped up in the coding to do much, but there is one thing she realizes—that working with Ben is way, way better than working against him. 

She has a tendency to jump right into coding, to dive right in and write lines and lines of code without checking her work. 

And it works for her, because she’s not prone to making mistakes, but the thing about coding is that even one mistake can throw everything off, and Devi already doesn’t have much patience, but her temper gets very bad while coding sometimes. 

(Most of the time, really.)

But Ben balances that out, helps her stay grounded. He’s detail oriented, she realizes, not slow, like she had called him before. He’s careful, and he finds her mistakes faster than she ever could. She’s the faster coder, but Ben is far more meticulous, and it balances them out. They work better together than they ever did apart. 

It’s easy, too, surprisingly easy to laugh with him. Not  _ at _ him, but  _ with _ him. He’s funny and snarky and has a dry sense of wit that she has to admit, makes her laugh harder than she has in a while. And he lets her tease him, lobbing gentle jabs back at her, a sort of tête-à-tête that she loves. 

But, she doesn’t  _ really _ learn about who Ben is until Friday night. 

It’s late, the both of them having stayed at work to run a few last checks on the watch’s linking and messaging systems. She knows it’s perfect, she does, but she and Ben are both perfectionists who can’t resist checking everything again. 

But eventually, even she can’t take it anymore, and she pushes her chair back from the desk and blinks, her eyes swimming with lines of code. “Ugh,” she groans, resting her head on her hands. “Do you think we’re good?” 

Ben, from where he’s sitting next to her, laughs. “Yeah, David. We’re good.” 

“Thank god,” Devi murmurs. “I think if I have to see another line of code for the rest of my life, it’ll be too soon.” 

“You’re a coder. As a job.” 

She reaches out and smacks his arm, not even opening her eyes. “It’s a goddamn fucking saying,” she groans. “Must you take everything literally?” 

Devi presses a hand to her stomach, hearing it growl. “Oh my god, I’m  _ starving,”  _ she whimpers. 

His finger pokes her in the arm, and she blinks, looking up at him. “What have you been eating?” he asks. 

She thinks about it, trying to stave off the impending headache she can feel coming. “Um, I think I had a granola bar for lunch?” 

“Yesterday?” he pushes. 

“Same.” 

Ben’s mouth drops open in horror. “Devi, holy shit. You need to take better care of yourself.” 

She frowns at him. “I do just fine.” 

“By my accounts you haven’t had a meal in the past few days.” She winces at that, and he notices, his eyes narrowing. “It’s been longer, hasn’t it?” 

She crosses her arms and stubbornly looks down at the floor, kicking the linoleum with her foot. “Why do you care?” she grumbles. 

“Cause, like you said, we’re friends, you idiot.” 

“Beginning to regret that,” she quips, smiling. 

Ben rolls his eyes. “I’m hungry too, and, since apparently, I can’t trust you to eat anything if I leave you alone, we’re gonna get dinner.” 

“Where?” 

“Chinese food?” 

“Sure,” she mumbles. The room is a bit chilly, and Ben’s right there, and she can practically  _ feel _ the warmth radiating off of him in waves. 

So, that’s why she’s not to blame for what she does next, resting her head on Ben’s shoulder as he scrolls through his phone. “Anything in particular?” he whispers. 

Devi presses her cheek harder against his shoulder and closes her eyes. “Nothing. Just tons of fortune cookies.” 

She can hear the smile in his voice as he says, “of course.” 

Suddenly, then, she’s blinking awake, cheek pressed against her desk as Ben gently shakes her. “Devi,” he murmurs. 

“Hmm?” she groans, rubbing at her eyes as she sits up. 

“You fell asleep,” he says. “The food’s here.” 

Devi can smell the food, and suddenly, she’s wide awake, her stomach grumbling. “Oh,” she breathes, holding her hands out. “Give me.” 

Ben laughs, holding his hand out. “You’re not eating at your desk. Come on.” 

She eyes him suspiciously. “Are you trying to get me to a secondary location? I don’t trust secondary locations.” 

“You got a silver money clip with $50 in it to distract me? Know how to use those street smarts?” he drawls. 

Devi giggles as she puts her hand in his. “Clever, Gross.” 

Ben pulls her up and wraps his other hand around the bag containing the food, bringing her over to the sitting area. 

Instead of sitting on the couch, though, Ben drops right on the floor, sitting with his back pressed to the couch. “Come on.” 

Devi raises an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have thought of you as someone who liked eating dinner on the floor, Ben.” 

“I’m not.” He flashes her a grin. “But you are.” 

He’s not wrong, she reminds herself, even as she blushes, and sits down besides him. Reaching into the bag, she pulls out a carton of food and opens it, tearing apart a pair of chopsticks. “You got a lot of food,” she remarks. 

“You would be hungry, wouldn’t you?” 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “But this must have cost a lot. I hope they bled you dry, Gross,” she snorts. 

Ben smirks. “Why?” 

“You’re rich. Plus, you  _ were _ kind of an asshole to me, when I arrived. Cause like, I was obviously the easy target.” 

He freezes. “What?” 

Devi smiles bitterly at him, no humor in it. “Come on, Ben. You can’t tell me you didn’t antagonize me because I was a woman of color in computer science, right? I mean, come on. Look at you, and look at me.” She uses the chopsticks to point at him, saying, “rich white guy,” and then moves to her. “Middle class brown girl. You had the advantage.” 

Ben’s jaw drops. “Devi, you’ve got it totally wrong!” 

“How can I have gotten it wrong?” she laughs. “You’re not the first one to do it to me, Ben. For some reason, you just have never reported me, no matter how many times I yelled at you.” 

He shakes his head. “You’ve got it all wrong, Devi. I didn’t push you because you were a brown girl. I pushed you cause you were the best damn coder here.” 

Now it’s Devi’s turn to freeze. “What?” 

“Y—yeah,” he stammers out. “You were the best coder. You gave as good as you got and arguing with you was never boring. I swear, I wasn’t—wasn’t trying to get you in trouble, or anything. And you pushed me to be better, anyways. I liked it. You challenged me.” 

She gapes at him. “You were—weren’t  _ trying _ to get me in trouble?” 

A dark, angry look flashes over Ben’s face. “Never. I can’t believe there have been people who have treated you like that.”

“It’s normal,” she whispers. 

Ben sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I never,  _ ever _ meant for you to take it like that, Devi.” 

“I know you didn’t.” 

“And you’re already paying me back anyways,” Ben whispers. “I don’t need any money from you. I don’t want it.” 

“What? How am I paying you back?” 

“You’re eating dinner with me.” 

“What?” 

“You’re eating dinner with me,” he repeats. “I don’t have to eat alone. I hate it.” 

“What do you mean by that?” She reaches over and steals some of his pork, ignoring how he scowls at her. 

Ben shrugs. “I ate a lot of meals alone. Didn’t have a lot of friends growing up.” 

“Really? I would have  _ never _ thought,” she gasps. 

Ben smirks, reaching over and stealing some of her noodles, despite her efforts to bat his hand away. “Thanks, David.” 

“But still. Didn’t your parents eat with you?” 

The smile slips off his face, and if possible, he grips the carton of Chinese food tighter. “My parents were really busy,” he murmurs. “They didn’t spend much time at home.” 

She lowers her food from where she’s trying to get a particularly difficult bit of noodles and stares at him. She realizes, in the two years she’s known Ben, she knows  _ nothing _ about his parents. And it’s not like—like he knows much about  _ hers, _ but still. 

“They didn’t?” she asks, softly. 

Ben clenches his jaw and looks down to the floor, refusing to meet her eyes. “Look, Devi,” he sighs. “I don’t want to talk about this, to be honest.” 

She sets her food down and shuffles over, covering her hand with his. “Ben,” she says softly. “I’m here to listen, if you need to.” 

“There’s not much to say.” He drops his chopsticks back into the carton, hand flipping under hers to lace their fingers together. “I had a pretty lonely childhood. Not many friends. Turns out kids don’t really like you when all you can talk about is how much money your dad makes.” 

“Could’ve told you that,” she says. Devi presses her thumb into Ben’s hand, their fingers intertwined. “You want to stop?” she asks. 

“Kind of,” he breathes. “I don’t know. College was a little better, cause I learned how to talk to people, and I had a few girlfriends, but nobody lasting, besides my friend Trent, of course.”

She furrows her brows. “He’s the legal marijuana distributor, right?”

Ben barks out a laugh. “Yup, that’s him.” 

Part of her thinks it’s the funniest fucking thing in the world, that someone like Ben’s closest friend was  _ Trent, _ but in a weird way, it kind of makes sense. 

“So you had Trent,” she pushes. 

“Yeah, but he’s got his own life,” Ben murmurs. “I got used to eating alone, but I guess I just—never stopped hating it.” 

_ Loneliness, _ she realizes. That’s the emotion always swimming in Ben’s eyes she can never quite name, the emotion she can never place, that bleeds into everything he does. Loneliness. 

It would be too soon to reach out and pull him into her, would be too soon to rest her hand on his cheek and to stroke his jaw with her fingers. It would be too soon to have his face press into her neck and to tangle their legs together. It would be too soon to look into his eyes and to press her forehead against his, to promise him things. It would be too soon. 

(And yet, no matter how many times she reminds herself of this, she does not want to do it any less.)

Devi shoves all of those feelings down, trying to suffocate them as best as she can. She glances at Ben, sees the tired way he sighs and the way he almost seems to fold in on himself. 

“My dad died when I was fifteen,” she says. She doesn’t know why she says it, what prompts her to, only that she does, and she can’t take it back once it’s out there. 

She doesn’t want to. 

Ben’s head lifts up slowly, and his eyes lock with hers. She expects to see pity, like she has from so many other people, but instead she just sees deep, deep sorrow. “I’m so sorry, Devi.” 

She looks down at their joined hands, tightening her grip. For a moment, she worries she’s holding his hand too tight, but he grips her fingers even tighter, so tight it hurts. And yet, it’s why she can breathe. 

“He was sick for a long time before that. It wasn’t really a shock. But losing him—destroyed me.” It’s a bit dramatic, but really, the only apt way to describe it. “I was traumatized. I had to watch him die, and it was—will always be—the hardest thing I’ve had to do. For three months after he died I was in a wheelchair, because I couldn’t walk. Losing him was the worst thing that ever happened to me.” 

Ben reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like,” he murmurs. “But I’m so, so sorry.” 

She breaks, then, burying her face in her hands. She doesn’t cry, not quite, but it’s a near thing, and Ben’s arm wraps around her shoulders as he pulls her closer. 

He smells like sandalwood, and he feels like everything good in the world. His shirt is soft, and she buries her face in his chest as she breathes, shaking, and his hand smooths up and down her back, soothingly, and she melts into him, completely. He is warm and soft and he is here. It hits her like a bolt of lightning striking a tree, like fire burning on the top of water, like wind sweeping up a dust storm, a clash of opposite elements, that he is her friend. 

“You know,” she murmurs, drawing away from him and picking up her food again. “Trent’s not your only friend.” 

He catches on to what she’s saying, and grins at her, bright and wide. “Really?” he smirks, smug. 

Devi nods. “Yeah. I  _ guess _ we’re kind of friends now.” 

He laughs. “Good. Cause that means I can do this.” 

Ben reaches over and steals some of her food out of the carton, and she shrieks, tugging it away from him. “Ben!” she laughs. 

He pops the food in his mouth and chews, eyes dancing with mirth. “Asshole,” she grins. 

Laughing, Ben bumps her shoulder with his, and, as she smiles back, Devi thinks that deciding to be friends with him has to be one of the best decisions she’s made in a while. 


	2. darling, so it goes, some things are meant to be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! welcome to chapter number 2 of this fic! we are super excited to show you it and hope you enjoy!
> 
> there's really only a few things you need to know about this chapter and that's: we love female friendship and classic rom-com tropes. that's the extent of our personalities. oh, and add a dash of science nerding in as well. 
> 
> anyways, we hope you enjoyy!!

Devi lets herself into Eleanor’s apartment the night of the annual company gala expecting a promised pair of heels, a matching dress, and not much else.

She is unfortunately greeted by far more than that.

Eleanor’s apartment is as Devi remembers, bright, poppy, and colorful, and her walls are plastered with Broadway and romcom posters for Devi to glance at. Time ticks on and she begins to tap her foot impatiently and hum to herself as she waits.

She fully expects Eleanor to pop out of her room, toss her the aforementioned dress and pair of heels, be a combination of both impressed and alarmed by Devi’s fashion sense, and for the two of them to promptly make their way to the gala.

Instead, Ben steps out and Devi feels her eyes bug when she sees his state of dress. Or, lack thereof, really.

_ Fuck _ , he’s not wearing a shirt.

(Why does that make her heart race in her chest?)

Her mouth drops agape as she finds herself staring at his bare chest. She wants to run her hands along the plane of his chest, feel his abs under the palm of her hand.

God, he has muscles  _ everywhere _ . 

She longs to press her palm against the left side of his chest, to see if his heart is racing as fast as her own, banging relentlessly against her rib cage.

She’s so often mocked Ben for being skinny and scrawny, but it takes this moment, ogling him like a goddamn idiot, for Devi to realize he’s  _ not _ . He’s even more muscular and jacked than he’s always claimed, even the muscles in his arms are defined and prominent. She kind of wants him to wrap one of his arms around her waist and pull her close, the same way he did when he sang to her the first time, only this time, she’d wrap her arms around him too.

“Like what you see, David?”

Devi snaps her head up to meet Ben’s smug smirk and finds herself staring into his blue, blue eyes.  _ Have his eyes always been that ridiculously blue? _ Maybe it’s a trick of the fluorescent lighting in Eleanor’s apartment, but right now, his eyes can only be described as brilliantly blue: kaleidoscopic and comparable to the crackling, simmering surfaces of the hottest of stars. Blazing, burning, brilliant.

Devi blinks a few times to bring herself back to reality and crosses her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here, Gross?”

Ben opens his mouth to speak, but is promptly cut off by Eleanor. “I felt it was my duty to rescue Benjamin’s fashion sense,” she says, stepping into the room primly. “After you introduced us the other day, I could see he was  _ sorely _ in need of my help.” She’s donning a pink gown that makes her look like she’s ready to walk the red carpet, her fair is fashioned into perfect curls, and her make-up is impeccably applied. Not that Devi expected anything less of Eleanor, when she invited her as her plus one for the company gala, really.

“Woah, El, you look amazing,”

Eleanor flashes Devi a smile as she hands Ben a dress shirt. “Thanks.” She takes a step towards Devi and claps her hands together. “The dress and heels I picked out for you are in my room. I think they’ll suit you perfectly.”

Devi glances over at Ben one more. He’s shrugging the dress shirt on, and his muscles fucking  _ ripple _ as he does so, and this is  _ so _ unfair, seriously. He works at the buttons, and she wonders for an errant moment what his fingers would feel like skating across her skin, but dismisses the thought with a shake of her head and walks in the other direction towards Eleanor’s room.

True to her word, a dark red dress sits on Eleanor’s bed and a matching set of heels rest on the floor. Devi shuts the door behind her, before hastily swapping her clothes for the dress. It’s a tight fit, snug enough to accentuate her curves, and falls to just below her knees. 

She looks at herself in the mirror, running her hands down her torso, smoothing the dress out. The fabric is soft to the touch, and she trails her fingers along the neckline, wondering for a second if it dips too low before dismissing the thought. It's off the shoulder, and Devi makes a mental note to apply foundation to smooth out the color of her skin as she does her makeup.

The dress needs to be tied in the back, once lower on her back, and the other higher up towards her arms, and she groans in frustration when she realizes she can’t do this by herself. Devi steps out of Eleanor’s room to ask her friend for help. “Eleanor!” she calls. “Can you help with my dress?”

Devi steps back into her room, grumbling as she runs a hand through her tangled hair, hoping that Eleanor will be able to fix it. The door clicks open and Devi sighs. 

“Thanks, Eleanor,” she murmurs. 

Her breath catches when she feels a hand that she decidedly knows does not belong to Eleanor brush the exposed skin on her back. The pads of his fingers are calloused, but still so smooth and she’s tempted to turn around and take his hands in her own. The scent of sandalwood engulfs her as Ben’s fingers wrap around the loose strings, and Devi tries not to let out a gasp when he pulls on them, tugging her back towards him. 

The knuckles of his hands—so goddamn  _ warm, _ why are they so warm—brush against her back as he knots the first set of ties, and Devi can barely breathe as she feels his fingers brush against the nape of her neck as he ties the strings up near her shoulder blades. “There you go,” he whispers, breath ghosting against her back. 

Devi tries not to arch into his touch when she feels his hand skim down her back, just barely, so light she thinks she might have imagined it, instead choosing to clear her throat, hoping her hands aren’t shaking too obviously.

He steps away and she turns around to face him. He’s wearing a blazer with a blue undertone that perfectly brings out his eyes, which linger on her. She can’t help but feel a little powerful with the way he’s looking at her, pupils dilating, eyes darkening, as he drinks her in, studying her as if she is his favorite thing to look at and learn about.

“Like what you see, Gross?” she parrots back, unable to keep from smirking.

Ben coughs and glances frantically at the floor before meeting her eyes again, blue irises swimming with nervous apprehension. His voice sounds slightly strangled. “You look really pretty.”

Devi feels her cheeks warm and ducks her head, only glancing up again when she hears the click of Eleanor’s heels as she enters her room. Eleanor hands Ben a tie with a red and blue accent, tossing Devi a knowing glance accompanied by a wink, to which Devi scowls.

Eleanor directs Devi to sit in front of her vanity and perfectly applies her make-up and styles her hair, before Ben offers to drive them in his Porsche. Devi can’t help but suppress a snort, because of course he has a  _ Porsche _ .

The whole time, on the way to the gala, she can't stop thinking about the way Ben’s hand had felt, brushing her back, the way he looked at her like she was something precious, yet ephemeral, as if he was drinking her in before she vanished right before his eyes. She wants his eyes to linger on her, doesn’t want him to think he can’t look at her. 

She steps into the gala, arm linked with Eleanor’s, and Ben offers to get them drinks. “I’ll get us the good stuff,” he reassures her.

Devi wacks him with her clutch purse. “How do you know what’s considered good, Gross?”

Ben tilts his head and smiles, eyes glinting as he thinks up a response.

“Oh, right,” Devi drawls, “Sorry, I forgot. It’s because you’re a rich, pretentious, asshole.”

Ben scoffs. “You like it, David.”

Devi smacks him again with her clutch. “You better be true to your word!” she calls as Ben begins to walk away. He cranes his head back in her direction to offer a surreptitious wink to which Devi pretensively scowls. She watches Ben fade into the crowd, only turning around at the sound of a familiar voice.

“Devi!”

Devi grins when she sees Paxton looking at her and waves him over. “Hey, Paxton!”

Paxton steps over to them and smiles widely. “Eleanor,” she says, addressing her friend. “This is one of my coworkers, Paxton Hall-Yoshida. Paxton, this is my best friend, Eleanor Wong.”

Paxton reaches out to shake Eleanor’s hand. “You two look nice,” he says with his trademarked glimmering smile. It’s the smile that usually makes Devi’s heart do cartwheels and somersaults in her chest, but today it does nothing, her pulse remains steady and unchanging.

(Yet when she was with Ben, her heart wouldn’t stop racing.)

He looks them both up and down. “My sister, Rebecca, would approve.”

“What does your sister do?” Eleanor asks, intrigued.

Paxton redirects his smile to Eleanor. “She’s a fashion designer.”

Eleanor gasps. “Oh my gosh! Your sister is Rebecca Hall-Yoshida?”

Paxton nods, looking impossibly proud. “That’s the one. She’s amazing.”

Eleanor claps her hands together. “She is,” Eleanor gushes. “I have so many of her pieces, she’s one of my style icons!”

Devi glances at Paxton and notices his cheeks have slightly pinkened. He’s looking at Eleanor fondly, with a charmed expression Devi has always wanted to be directed at her, but she finds she doesn’t mind. 

(Why doesn’t she mind?)

“I could introduce you to her, if you wanted,” Paxton rubs the back of his neck, seeming uncharacteristically nervous. “Becca loves meeting people.”

Eleanor giggles, her face looking slightly flushed as well. “I’d like that,” she says quietly.

To her right, Devi feels a tap on her arm, and she turns to see Ben, holding two flutes of champagne.

"The good stuff, as promised," he quips, handing a glass to Devi and Eleanor. 

Devi takes a sip, and raises her eyebrows. "Not bad, Gross.”

Ben smirks. “Thank you, I do try.”

She watches Eleanor continue to chat with Paxton, watches the way her eyes light up when he makes a joke, the way she rests a hand on his arm as she laughs. She doesn’t feel jealous, if anything, she’s happy for Eleanor, she hasn’t seen her look this enchanted in a while.

(Wait, why isn’t she jealous? Doesn’t she want Paxton? Hasn’t she always wanted him?)

She taps Ben’s shoulder to get his attention. “I heard the view is nice out on the balcony,” she says, but before he can utter a response, she’s grabbing his arm and dragging him outside.

“Devi—w—what?” he stammers.

“They were hitting it off,” Devi explains once they’re out the balcony. “I didn’t want us to like, third and fourth wheel or anything.”

Ben jerkily nods his head. “Right,” he agrees.

She shivers and feels Ben drape his blazer over her shoulders like a cape. It’s warm, reminding her of a hug, though she thinks she might prefer his arms wrapped around her instead.

(Wait what?)

She turns towards him, slightly startled. “What are you doing?”

Ben scoffs as if it’s completely obvious. “I’m being nice to you, David.”

“Why?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Because we’re friends.”

“Thanks,” Devi says, tugging the blazer more tightly around her shoulders, the smell of sandalwood and something uniquely him engulfing her. She smiles softly at him and feels her pulse pick up when he warmly smiles back. Even if only for his smile, becoming Ben’s friend is easily one of the best decisions she’s recently made. Still, being his friend means she can’t help but express a little concern. “Aren’t you going to be cold?”

Ben smirks. “Nah, I’m the perfect specimen, if the way you were looking at me earlier is any indication.”

Devi swats him playfully. “You asshole.”

She notices Ben grinning at her—his smile radiant, incandescent, and wholly captivating—and finds she can’t even be that annoyed. When he smiles like that she can’t think or feel anything else, she just basks in his presence, enjoying the shared moment between them.

(His smile has always had the ability to do that, make everything around her fade away.)

Devi props her chin up on her hands, resting her elbows on the ledge of the balcony. The lights of buildings in the city skyline sparkle, like stars winking in the sky. “Nice party, huh?

Ben cocks his head. “I was expecting something a little better to celebrate my accomplishments. Especially with that big project I just finished up.”

“You do know this big party isn’t just for you, right?”

Ben’s eyes glint at her challenge. “Is that so?”

“Yeah,” Devi says, tossing her hair over one shoulder in a singular fluid motion. “It’s for me too.”

“Really? For you?” Ben scoffs

“Well, why wouldn’t it be? I survived being your partner for an entire project without throttling you.”

“What an accomplishment,” he says, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

“It took quite some restraint on my part,” Devi teases. 

“Hmm.” His gaze grows in intensity and he takes a step toward her. “Yeah, well, there’s something that took quite some restraint on my part too.”

It’s only then that Devi realizes Ben is standing much, much closer. He is so, so close.

(Yet, so, so far.)

His hand hovers in the air between them. It’s uncertain. Hesitant.

(Does he mean to move it to cup her cheek?)

“What?” Devi breathes out, stepping even closer to him, and the action feels almost involuntary, like his gravity is pulling her in.

She watches Ben’s eyes dart between her eyes and her lips, his expression seeming to ask,  _ Is this alright?  _ She hopes her look back says,  _ Yes, yes, it’s more than alright.  _

(She can’t ever remember wanting anyone this much, not even Paxton. She craves to be around Ben, more and more. The more time she spends with him, the more she wants eternity with him. Sometimes, it feels like there’ll never be enough time with the two of them, with his hand in hers.)

“This,” he says softly.

His hand on her cheek is so, so warm and she lets her eyes flicker shut and her lips part. In her anticipation, Devi is reminded of the moment before lightning strikes, the atmosphere crackling with electricity, the moment before a volcano erupts, the air drumming with energy, the moment before everything,  _ everything,  _ changes.

He is so, so close, she can feel his breath fanning her face, and then—

Well, then— 

He starts singing.

Her eyes flutter open at the sound of a guitar chord ringing out into the air.  _ Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. _

Ben’s singing voice glides over Devi, making her head spin as she watches him perform extensive choreography, spinning elegantly on the balls of his feet.

(It’s like her heart stops in her chest and she can barely breathe, she wonders,  _ wonders _ , how he is able to.)

Then, Ben grabs her hands and pulls her close, blue, blue eyes boring into her soul.

(It’s shocking that he can both steal her breath away and bring it back to her body, just with the touch of his hands. His hands linked with her ignite a spark in her, a fire in her soul, yet all the same, bring her back to Earth, keep her centered and tethered and from falling completely apart.)

He spins her around, sending her tumbling into freefall and then he immediately catches her, steadying her back on her feet.

His blazer slips off of her shoulders, crumpling on the ground, but suddenly, she’s the furthest thing from cold, warm and safe in the circle of Ben’s arms, the steadiest, most stable place she has ever known. She wants to stay here forever. 

(He is a startling dichotomy between steady, strong, familiar, and the vast unknown.)

His hand strokes down the side of her cheek, and Devi—Devi normally knows the songs people are singing to her, but right now, she could be at gunpoint, and she wouldn't know the lyrics, because the only thing she can focus on is Ben's eyes, looking into hers, holding a thousand and one emotions in them. 

(She never thought anyone would ever look at her like this, like the whole universe pales in comparison to her, like she  _ is _ the entire universe, like every single star, constellation, and galaxy rests within her eyes. It makes her heart explode and take flight like a flock of starlings.) 

The lyrics start piercing through the fog his eyes have created, and she starts shaking. Oh,  _ no. _

Ben's hand interlaces with hers, his arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her flush against him, like she'd wanted him to when she saw him in El's apartment, and— 

They're dancing now, slow and soft, and his singing is quiet, sending shivers down her spine like someone's dumped snow down the back of her dress. His hand presses in between her shoulder blades, like a fire against her bare skin, and she shivers in his arms, but not from the cold, as he effortlessly pulls her around the balcony. She stumbles to keep up with him, but even when she trips, he doesn't miss a step, catching her and pulling her closer, impossibly closer. 

(Devi still feels like they're too far apart.)

He presses his forehead to hers and she can feel their breaths intermingling as he continues to sing to her. His arm around her waist tugs her closer, closer, closer, and Devi presses her body against him, chasing him, chasing  _ something. _

(She wants this song, this dance, this moment to last forever.)

Then the last guitar chord rings out, everything halts, and Devi blinks, finding herself back in the same position, Ben’s eyes boring into hers, and she reacts instinctively, shoving herself away from him until they’re several steps apart. 

(She aches to be back in his arms, to have his arms holding her close in a way she knows he would never dare to if he was truly conscious. Sometimes it kills her that the only moments she gets with him like this are when he’s unaware of it, when he’s in the throes of a heart song. Because Devi wants him to  _ choose _ to look at her like that, to know he is pouring his heart out to her, She can’t help but feel like the heart songs have stolen something from her, in that regard, stolen the first moment that Ben chooses to bare his heart to her.) 

But she’s also grateful she’s stepped away, because she’s not sure what she would do if she was closer to him. 

She stares at him, her hands shaking, the lyrics ringing over and over again in her ears. 

_ Take my hand, take my whole life too. For I can't help falling in love with you. _

Fuck. It backfired. 

* * *

Devi really should have known her plan could only end one way: in a spectacular failure.

It’s just, Ben falling in love with her is not something she planned for, not something that crossed her mind—or, more accurately, it’s not something she’d been willing to let cross her mind, which is practically the same thing.

But from the song she’d heard him sing at the company gala—the way his eyes had lit up as he had quite literally poured his heart out to her without even knowing he was doing it—it’s clear that becoming Ben’s friend had only made him more certain of his feelings.

Ben was no longer singing about  _ thinking _ he was in love with her—about his feelings being a potentiality, an uncertainty, a possibility—no, he sang about being completely, deeply in love with her. Devi feels her heart thump against her chest as she remembers the way he gripped her hands and the way his blue, bottle blue, midnight blue eyes had stared straight into her soul.

(Her heart had felt like it was going to pound right out of her chest, thumping against her ribcage so intensely it felt like her bones might bruise. Whenever she thinks about it, thinks about his hands, wrapped around hers, and those words falling from his lips, her chest hurts, and she can’t breathe. She knows it isn’t anatomically possible, but she thinks he’s bruised her bones.) 

It should have worked, it really,  _ really _ should have. Devi doesn’t like herself all that much, she’s used to people leaving her behind when they see who she really is, and she expected Ben to do the same. It should have been an easy way to solve this problem without breaking his heart

After all, if  _ she _ could barely stand herself, then someone who’d known her a much shorter time and was just beginning to learn all of the ugly things about her should have been sent running in the opposite direction. She doesn’t know why Ben didn’t run. 

(Did she really want him to?) 

She’d known the plan was counterintuitive when she first thought of it, knew the idea of becoming Ben’s friend to stop him from having feelings for her was pure lunacy, she just never imagined it going so horribly wrong. She realizes the flaw with her plan is the same flaw in her coding, she jumps in too fast and fails to catch the tiny cracks and mistakes in her planning.

Or lack of planning, really. And boy, had she failed to consider the consequences and repercussions of this miserable excuse of a plan.

It’s even worse because Ben is her friend, one of the best friends she’s made in a while. He’s compassionate and genuine and pushes her to be the best coder she can be, no longer through antagonism but motivation. He’s willing to listen, is surprisingly easy to talk to, and is the first person Devi has felt comfortable opening up to other than Eleanor and Fabiola. He’s funny and kind, and he’s the only other person on the floor—she thinks sometimes, in the whole world—who can keep up with her, who isn’t intimidated by her intelligence, but respects it. 

He’s even sweet, when he wants to be.

The whole thing just makes her feel extraordinarily shitty, if she’s being honest.

It hits Devi three days into wallowing—into nursing her wounds over her spectacular failure—that there’s another reason she feels terrible: Ben doesn’t know about her powers.

If her plan had succeeded, he never would have had to know, but now that it’s failed and he’s become someone she cares about, the idea of keeping such a big secret from him, especially when it’s  _ regarding _ him, just feels wrong.

Ben has given her nothing but honesty, through both his words and heart songs, and Devi realizes she owes him the same thing.

(They have never lied to each other, and she doesn’t want to start now. Lying is the one thing—the one thing Devi hates doing, and she hates that sometimes she does it so easily; to her mother, her friends, keeping this secret from everyone. But she’s never been able to lie to Ben, not  _ really, _ and so right now, she feels compelled to tell him the truth. To seek him out, and to be the one to put her secret out there, for once. He’d done the same to her.) 

She’s bouncing on her heels with nervous energy when she knocks on the door of his apartment—it’s a Saturday afternoon, so she knows he’ll be home, sitting on his couch engrossed in a book—already regretting the decision, to be honest with Ben more and more with each passing second. She contemplates running, not going through with this and just—

No, she owes him honesty.

Ben answers the door, a familiar smirk on his face, the predicted book tucked under his arm. “Hey, David! Did you come over because you needed my coding expertise?”

His quip makes her feel lighter for about a second, but the relief doesn’t last. “No—shut up,” she breathes, stepping into his apartment. Ben gives her a confused glance, but shuts the door.

She wrings her hands together. “I need to talk to you about something actually.”

The smugness in Ben’s expression melts into genuine concern and she kind of hates how well he can read her. He places his hand on her arm for a moment and Devi feels her breath hitch. “Are you okay?”

Devi’s eyes lock with his for a brief second, before she looks away and steps toward his couch, taking a seat. She pats the spot next to her. “Can you just take a seat?” She takes a deep breath in an attempt to steady herself. “Please.”

Ben takes the spot next to her, looking even more concerned than before. “Devi.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Are you okay?” he repeats

“I’m fine,” she reassures him, forcing a slight smile. “I just—I need to talk to you about something.”

Ben tilts his head and regards her with worry. “Alright, well, what do you want to talk to me about?”

She takes a deep breath. “This is going to sound absolutely insane, but I really, really need you to believe me, okay?”

Ben smiles at her—a soft, reassuring smile, the antithesis to his teasing, radiant grin, but it warms her all the same—and it’s almost soothing. 

(Or perhaps it’s not Ben’s smile, perhaps it’s just  _ him _ .)

“Yeah, of course. What’s going on?”

She takes a deep breath and then several more. “Remember how I told you about my dad? Well, 3 months ago, I got an MRI, to make sure I don’t have what he had and—”

Ben cuts her off, fear flashing through his eyes as he reaches out and to take her hand. “Oh, Devi, why didn’t you tell me?”

_ Well, shit _ , he completely misunderstood her. 

“No, no,” she reassures him, with a shake of her head. “I’m not sick, that’s not what happened.” She doesn’t know why she does, but she lets him keep holding her hand, able to breathe easier as he traces circles on her palm with his thumb.

“Well, then, what is it?”

She clears her throat. “Well, after the MRI I discovered that I—uh—” She swallows the lump forming in her throat. “I developed this ability—no, power—to hear people’s innermost thoughts, desires, and problems through these big...musical numbers.”

Ben’s hand stills. “You did,” he says, somehow looking more terrified than before.

“Yeah,” Devi says, nodding her head. “And I know it sounds insane, you probably think I’ve lost my mind or that I’m going crazy or and quite frankly I wouldn’t believe something like this if someone told me and—”

Ben cuts her off. “I believe you.”

Devi gapes. “What?”

“I believe you,” Ben repeats, his gaze on her only growing in intensity

Devi blinks a few times to steady herself, only then realizing that he’s still holding her hand and slipping his hand out of her grasp. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”

Ben ducks his head and huffs a laugh. “David, I’ve always thought you were a little crazy, but considering you once told me you thought your dad was a coyote, this is a lot less crazy than that.”

For a first time in three days, Devi feels a smile spread across her face.

“It actually makes a fair bit of sense. Historically, music has always been a great way for societies to express a range of emotions and evolutionarily scientists think music originated—”

Devi smacks him a pillow and laughs. “Ugh, shut up, Ben.”

Ben tips his head back and laughs joyfully, the sound warming Devi to her core. She loves moments like this with him, when all her troubles seem to melt away and become irrelevant. It is as if him, her, and the shared moments between them are all that exist in the universe.

(Sometimes, moments with him are all she wants in the universe.)

Suddenly, Ben stops laughing, a skittish, anxious look flooding his eyes, and clears his throat. “Did I—uh—I ever sing to you?”

Devi turns to him and blinks several times. “Sorry?”

“You said you hear people’s innermost thoughts and—uh—feelings as these musical numbers, right? So, did I ever sing—to you?”

His eyes on her are completely earnest, and Devi knows she owes him honesty. “You did,” she admits carefully. “Twice, actually.”

His cheeks look slightly flushed and she thinks he might be blushing. His voice comes out more nervous than she’s ever heard it. “What did I sing to you?” 

Devi feels her cheeks heat up and she ducks her head. “You—uh—sang to me about, um—

Ben groans, burying his head in his hands. “Oh, no.”

Her voice shakes. “Yeah. Those—um—feelings you have for me.”

Ben peers up from his hands. “Fuck,” he curses.

There’s a moment of stifling silence between them, one Devi doesn’t know how to break. She’s both thankful and somehow more anxious when Ben breaks it instead.

His voice comes out quiet and small. “Is that why you became my friend?”

Devi feels her breath catch. “What?”

“Well, you said these songs are about people’s inner problems, right? Was this just another problem you were trying to fix?”  _ Were you that disgusted by me _

It’s unsaid, but she knows what Ben is really asking. She’s learned in the past few months that he can read her better than anyone, the same way she can read him, for better or worse.

This situation—as she’s taken to calling it—was something she was trying to fix, at first, but somewhere along the way Ben became a true friend, someone she is endlessly appreciative to have in her life. She owes him honesty, honesty, honesty.

Devi squares her jaw. “Yes,” she admits. “But—”

Ben laughs self-deprecatingly, cutting her off. “Great,” he groans. “Of course, why—why am I even surprised?”

“Ben,” Devi breathes.

“No one has ever wanted to be my friend.” He lets out another strangled, brittle laugh. “Why would you be any different?”

“Ben,” Devi repeats, “I—”

“Stop,” he breathes. 

He runs his hand over his face again, suddenly looking more exhausted and weary than she can ever remember. She hates this Ben, the tired, drained one. She wants  _ her _ Ben back, the one who flashes her easy smiles and teases her about clothing choices. 

Ben clenches his jaw, clasped hands shaking in his lap. “I’m so sorry I—overwhelmed you with that, Devi. You were—were never meant to know. It wasn’t fair of me to do that to you. Do you want me to back off and leave you alone now that you—you know?”

Devi gapes at him. How can she tell him that that’s the opposite of what she wants?  _ Honesty _ , she repeats in her head like a mantra,  _ honesty, honesty, honesty. _

She hesitates, then reaches for his hands, prying them apart—it’s dangerous, misleading, and probably a mistake, but she does it anyway—and takes his hand in hers, interlacing their fingers. 

“You didn’t let me finish,” Devi says with a shake of her head. She fixes her gaze on him intensely. “Ben, I love being your friend. You’re surprisingly kind, you make me laugh a lot, you’re easy to talk to, you’re the only person who catches my mistakes in coding, and you’re the only person who can keep up with me.” She lets out a weary sigh. “God, Ben, I am so, so sorry you thought anything different.”

He offers her a shaky smile. “Thanks.”

Devi nods her head, swallows roughly, and squeezes his hand. She thinks—she knows, in fact, that it’s helping her breathe, touching him, and she hates that she needs him in this way when it’s misleading and she knows how he feels about her. 

Ben slips his hand away from hers and Devi finds she immediately misses the contact, misses the way his fingers linked with her own, easily, naturally, misses the strange, soothing effect it had on her.

She kind of wants to take his hand again, to have his grip on her hand be like an anchor tethering her back to reality. 

(But why?)

She wants back the grounding effect of her hand dwarfed by his. Because that’s the thing about Ben, he has always grounded her.

He’s always kept her on task, forced her to be the best she can be, and seen her for who she really is. Even before they were friends, he’d always known all of her worst and best facets. He’s always known her better than she’s willing to admit, that’s why he has always been able to push her buttons and further known which buttons to push.

(There is nothing in the world—no  _ one _ in the world—who centers her quite like Ben. When she is with him, she’s not anyone else but  _ her _ , and for the first time in her life, she’s not  _ trying _ to be. With Ben, all the airs and graces, all the toughness and strength that Devi has to draw on for every day of her life melts away. Just sitting with him is easy, is freeing, because she doesn’t have to be anyone but herself. He expects nothing from her, and, for someone whose life has always been dictated by expectation, it’s shocking, gives her whiplash. Ben gives her whiplash. It’s addictive, and she wants more.)

Maybe that’s why her plan failed.

(Maybe, just maybe, she didn’t want it to succeed to begin with. Maybe she wanted it to fail.)

Maybe, in some deep, dark, tucked away, hidden part of her soul all she’s wanted to be closer to Ben. Now he knows something she’s told barely anyone else, something that should pull them apart, and all she wants to do is pull him closer.

(All she’s ever wanted to do is pull him impossibly closer.)

The realization feels almost inevitable—like it’s something she’s already compartmentalized and accepted—which is perhaps why it isn’t shocking as much as relieving. 

She  _ likes _ Ben. 

* * *

Situationally linked. That’s the name she decides on after three glasses of Grigio and too much reality TV. 

That’s what she and Ben are right now. Situationally linked. 

(Ok, so, like, friends might also work. But it sounds too simple, too mundane for their predicament.) 

Because, well, here it is, laid out in stunningly excruciating detail (that Eleanor had requested) for all to understand: she and Ben are friends, and co-workers, except he’s confessed his lasting love for her in not one, but two separate musical numbers, and she’s currently entangled in some weirdly quasi-romantic feelings for him. Except those are probably largely from her attachment to him as a friend, because everyone knows she’s still interested in Paxton. 

Which she is. Whatever she had thought had been going on at the gala between Eleanor and Paxton wasn’t probably going anywhere, considering neither of them had mentioned anything in the past week since the gala. So, Devi thinks, she needs to keep pursuing Paxton. 

The more and more she thinks of it, though, the more it’s easy to be rationalized. The reason she thinks she likes Ben is because—because she’s lost sight of who she  _ really _ wants: Paxton. She hasn’t even hung out with him in a while! That’s the only reason these feelings for Ben are bubbling up.

They are friends. That’s undeniable. 

She just feels kinda bad because she  _ knows _ Ben has feelings for her. It’s just—it’s cruel, of her, frankly. 

(That’s the only reason she puts it off. Going after Paxton.) 

Eventually, though, something prompts her to stay on track, and it happens during lunch. 

Devi reaches over to switch her computer off, leaning over and grabbing her bag. 

“Hey,” she calls, to Ben. “Where do you want to go for lunch today?” 

His head snaps up, suddenly, and he winces. “Fuck, we had lunch plans today?”

Devi smiles and steps closer to him, rolling her eyes. “Gross, we eat lunch together like, every day. We don’t need to make special plans to grab lunch.” 

Ben winces again, clutching his jacket tightly. “Right.” 

She drops her smile, suddenly, stepping a bit closer. “What’s the problem?” 

“No—nothing,” he stammers out. 

Devi raises an eyebrow, crosses her arms, and shifts her weight onto one hip. “Spit it out, Gross.” 

“I’m just—meeting someone else for lunch.” 

Devi blinks, momentarily stunned. “Well,” she laughs. “Good for you, Gross. You made a new friend.” 

He smiles tightly. “Right, well, about that, I—” 

“Ben!” 

Devi turns around to look at the voice who cut him off, and feels her heart twist in her chest. There, standing at by the elevators, is one of the most beautiful girls Devi has ever seen in her entire life. Like, easily, model gorgeous. 

She suddenly feels extremely aware of the jeans and t-shirt she’s tugged on for work today, the fact that her hair has a million flyaways and she doesn’t have a drop of makeup on. 

Ben smiles at the girl, and Devi fucking swears that her lungs shrink in her chest. She can’t  _ breathe. _ “Hey, Shira,” he says, rising. 

Shira walks over to them and turns to Ben expectantly. As if rehearsed, he leans in and drops a kiss on her cheek, and the whole scene makes Devi want to throw up. 

(Her hands are shaking where they clasp her bag, and normally, when they shake this bad, she looks for Ben’s hand, to dwarf her own and take her nerves away. She has never been more aware she cannot do that than now.) 

“Are you ready to go?” she asks, when Ben pulls away. 

Ben nods. “Yeah, just give me a moment.” 

Shira snaps her gum and nods, sashaying away, and it takes everything in Devi to not stare at her as she walks. 

She swallows roughly and turns back to Ben, hoping her smile doesn’t look like that of a psychotic clown. “A fr—friend?” 

Ben nods, studying her carefully. “Yeah,” he says. “We’ve gone out on a few dates.” 

Devi laughs—a touch too loud—and checks her shoulder against Ben’s. “Nice,” she says, voice dripping with a mocking tone she doesn’t feel. “Do you think it’s going to go somewhere?” 

He smiles dryly. “I don’t know.” He sighs, and looks over at the elevators where Shira stands, tapping away on her phone. “She’s—” 

“Really hot,” she finishes for him. 

(He called her really pretty.) 

Ben laughs, though it’s small and not entirely free. “Well, I guess. But, you know, she’s also a bit…” he trails off. 

“A bit what?” Devi prods. 

He runs a hand over his face. “A little shallow, I think?” His brows furrow. “But I guess we’ve only gone on like, two dates. I don’t really know much about her.” 

Her nails dig into her palms as she feels the pain lance through her heart, hot and sharp, and she resists the urge to smash something. “But you—think there could be something there?” 

Ben shrugs, putting on his jacket. His brilliantly blue eyes show nothing, and for the first time since this all happened, Devi wishes viscerally for a heart song, so that she might be able to figure out what he is thinking. “I don’t know,” he murmurs. 

“Getting over me that soon, Gross?” she teases. “The heart songs made it seem like it was a lot more intense than this.” 

His mouth pinches into a tight line, and she wants to take those words back, stuff them down and pretend she never said them. “I gotta move on, Devi.” 

Ben doesn’t wait for her response, grabbing his wallet and brushing past her to greet Shira at the elevators, and she turns away from them so she doesn’t have to see them together. 

(It hurts, more than it should, more than she wants it to.) 

Irrationally, she feels a hot surge of anger pool in her stomach. At Ben, a little bit, but mostly at herself. Why is she letting herself be so affected like this? This isn’t what she wants. She doesn’t want  _ him. _ She wants someone else. 

Paxton has been who she has wanted for the past few years, and now that they’re actually  _ friends, _ now that she sees him as more than a hot body (she still feels bad about that, and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever  _ stop) _ she might have more of a chance. Eleanor hasn’t mentioned him. She can go after Paxton. She  _ should. _

It’s Paxton who she should be pursuing, who she should be hanging out with as a friend. It’s Paxton whose smile should make her feel like she’s flying, should fill her with happiness. It’s Paxton’s eyes who she should be aching to see, his hand in hers. 

(But Ben’s has always fit perfectly.) 

Devi clenches her jaw and stalks over to the elevators, jabbing the button on the side with a bit more force than necessary. 

She needs to get back on task, and that task is getting Paxton. 

* * *

“Did you guys know Ben was seeing someone?” Devi groans. 

Eleanor looks up—or down—or sideways? Fuck, Devi can’t tell, she’s lying upside down on El’s couch in her living room, and the room is spinning slightly. 

Devi shuffles so she’s sitting upright and rubs her head. “What did you say, Devi?” Fabiola asks. 

“Ben’s seeing someone,” Devi repeats. “Did you know?” 

Eleanor snorts, holding her hand out to blow on her nails gently. “Right, because Benjamin and I dish about our sex lives on the regular. We do it in between cucumber facials and chai tea lattes.” 

“You know you just said tea twice, right?” Fabiola asks, but Devi’s too fixated on the first part of Eleanor’s sentence to point that out. 

“Wait, you think he’s having sex with her?” she asks, a bit horrified. 

Eleanor gives her a withering look. “God, Devi, I don’t know.” 

She feels queasy at the thought. “Oh. So, he really didn’t mention anything to you?” 

Eleanor shakes her head. “Nope.”

She turns to her other friend. “Fab?” 

“You forget, Devi,” Fabiola says. “I’m your friend, but to Ben, I’m his boss. Plus, he’s always been good about being professional. He didn’t tell me anything.” 

“I just—this girl came to the office the other day to pick him up and she was  _ gorgeous,” _ Devi groans. “Like, heart-stoppingly, insanely gorgeous.” 

Snickering, Eleanor arches a perfect eyebrow, capping the bottle of nail polish and tossing it back into the box. “Sounds like someone’s a little jealous.” 

Devi’s mouth drops open. “What?”

Fabiola and Eleanor exchange a heavy, weighted glance. “Tell me, Devi,” Fabiola starts. “Do you think this girl is good enough for him?” 

Devi wrinkles her nose instantly. “No, of course not.” Catching the smug look on Eleanor’s face, she rushes to correct herself. “But that’s not cause I’m like, jealous, or anything. Ben said she was kind of shallow, and she didn’t really talk to me. Plus, he’s my friend. Can’t I want what’s best for him?” 

(And she thinks, as his friend, she knows what’s best for him, and it’s certainly not this girl.) 

Eleanor nods. “Fair enough. You can definitely want that. But it seems like there’s a little more here.” 

“As much as I’d love to keep talking about this,” Fabiola says, “I’m so sorry, Devi, I’ve got to go get some stuff done at the office. Text me about this?” She stands up, grabbing her jacket, and Devi does as well, pulling her into a quick hug. 

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “Thanks, Fab.” 

Fabiola leaves, and Eleanor shoots a pointed look at Devi. “So, what else is the problem?” 

“What the fuck do you mean, El?” Devi groans, flopping back in her seat. She reaches over and grabs her wine glass, downing half of it. 

“Devi.” 

She ducks her head, trying to ignore the knowing look in her friend’s gaze. “What, El?” she repeats, this time the words coming out as more of a mumble.

“What’s your real problem here?” 

Devi sighs, looking instead at the dregs of her glass. “I just—he sang to me about being  _ in love _ with me. Like, real, actual, love. I thought the heart songs couldn’t lie to me.” 

“They don’t. Not ever.” 

“Then—how is he dating so easily? How can he just move on?” She looks up at Eleanor, shoving her hands into her lap so they don’t shake. “I thought—I thought we were friends. I thought he loved me.”

(Did he? Did he  _ really? _ The heart song might not have lied, but it’s not like Ben told her how he felt either. And that, she thinks, is what hurts at the bottom of it all. That Ben didn’t think she deserved to know. That he didn’t love her enough to tell her how he felt. She doesn’t want to find out his feelings from a ridiculous musical number, she doesn’t want to see into his heart without him knowing. She wants him to choose  _ her, _ to tell  _ her, _ not because of some fucked-up MRI machine, but because he thinks she deserves to know. Because he loves her so much he can’t hold back.) 

Eleanor tilts her head, studying Devi. “Devi, do you  _ want _ Ben to move on from you?” 

“Of course I do!” she says, but she sounds unconvincing even to her own ears. “Of course I want him to move on.” 

“You know what that means, right?” Devi hates,  _ hates _ when Eleanor’s voice gets like this, all soft and understanding and kind. Eleanor sees right through her in a different way than Ben does, and sometimes, Devi wishes she weren’t so goddamn transparent about the whole thing. “Him moving on.” 

Devi crosses her arms defiantly and tosses her hair over her shoulder, letting it spill down her back. “Duh,” she mutters. 

“Devi. It means he won’t be in love with you anymore.” 

(And why does that hurt?)

“Right,” she scoffs. “I know. And that’s a good thing.” 

Eleanor hums, soft and understanding. “Is it?” 

“Yes, El!” she snaps, tired of dancing around the subject. “It’s exactly what I wanted.” 

“You two looked awfully cozy at the gala, though,” her friend sing-songs. “Like, sneaking off two seconds after we got there? And don’t think I missed the way you were looking at him when you walked into my apartment.” She wags her finger at Devi. “I must say, I was a little surprised you didn’t jump him right there.” 

“I—what?” Devi splutters. 

“Come on, Devi,” Eleanor wheedles. “You can’t tell me  _ nothing _ happened between you guys before he sang the heart song. You  _ had _ to have kissed, or something. He sang it for a  _ reason, _ didn’t he?” 

(She had wanted to kiss him, wanted to kiss Ben more than she could ever remember wanting to kiss someone else. His lips pressed against hers and those lovely, steady hands at her waist, or maybe in her hair, fingers dancing across her skin as he pulled her even closer and—) 

“No,” she snaps. “Nothing happened between us at the gala. Besides,” she snorts, “Ben and I aren’t like that. We’re just friends. I’ve liked Paxton for like, two years, now. I’m not giving up on him  _ that _ easy.” 

Eleanor freezes, mouth dropping open slightly. “You’re—you’re still going to go after Paxton?” 

Devi nods, getting up from the couch. “Obviously. I mean, he’s  _ gorgeous _ and now we’re actually friends, and I know he’s a lot sweeter than he seems. I like him. I still want to date him.” 

“Oh,” Eleanor says, for the first time seemingly at a loss for words. 

“I’m gonna go get another glass,” Devi says, brushing past her best friend. “Do you want anything, El?” she asks, turning back. 

Eleanor doesn’t face her as she shakes her head. “No, I’m—I’m good, Devi. Thanks.” 

Devi shrugs. “Suit yourself.” 

She pours herself a glass of wine and, as she sets the bottle down, starts to hear the first strains of music, indicative of a heart song. Devi’s brows knit together. A heart song. Who was singing it?

She glances around Eleanor’s apartment to see if there’s a window open, but as the music grows louder, she nearly drops her glass when she realizes the music is coming from  _ Eleanor. _

She creeps around the corner and peers around the doorway to see her friend in the same position as always, sitting on the couch, except this time, she’s dragging her fingers over and over the leather, steadily. 

This isn’t the first heart song Devi’s heard El sing, but they’re usually happy and bright, about how much she loves life and her friends, and about how happy she is to be around them. 

This song, though—it  _ hurts. _ It’s full of pain and heartbreak and she wants to run to her friend and wrap her arms around her, to hug her tight and never let her go. 

Devi grips her wine glass harder, straining to hear Eleanor’s voice, which sounds like she’s holding back tears, only managing to catch a few lyrics. But when she does, she’s utterly confused. 

What night is she talking about? What night would she regret for the rest of her days? 

She nearly growls in frustration, confused, but as the song goes on, the confusion begins to melt away into something else: horrible, wracking, overwhelming guilt. Oh,  _ god. _

She’s singing about Paxton. Devi presses a hand to her mouth, and she listens to Eleanor sing to herself about resigning herself to a life without him. For  _ her _ sake. 

Devi’s—she’s not kind, she’s not trusting, but fuck, it hurts that Eleanor thinks she’s such a good person that she would step aside from her own affections for the sake of letting them be happy. She’s not that good, is she? 

(Part of Devi knows that after everything, everything Eleanor has been through, if there is even the slightest chance that she wants something and Devi can give it to her, she would, without a second thought, and so, maybe Eleanor’s not as far off as she thought.) 

The song finishes, and it’s got to be one of the most painful songs that Devi’s ever heard. And there’s no way she’s going to let her friend be in this much pain. 

She rounds the corner, gently setting down her glass and sitting on the couch, leaning towards Eleanor. “El,” she says gently. 

Eleanor jerks up, and for a split second, Devi can see a thin sheen of tears in her eyes before she blinks them away. “Devi! Sorry,” she laughs, a bit choked. “I was just um—thinking about how sad  _ West Side Story _ makes me.” 

“Eleanor.” Devi reaches a hand out and wraps it around her friend’s. “Don’t lie to me, please. You just sang me a heart song.” 

Eleanor stops cold, eyes wide as she looks at her. “I did?” 

(Devi has never heard her voice this small and unsure, this scared.) 

She smiles. “You did. And you sounded really, really sad, El.” She runs her thumb along the back of Eleanor’s palm, soothing and soft. “El, do you have feelings for Paxton?” 

Eleanor’s shaking her head before Devi even finished asking the question. “Devi, I know you like him and no matter what I value our—”

“Eleanor,” Devi says, gently but firmly. “I asked you if you had feelings for Paxton.” 

Eleanor swallows roughly, eyes falling to the ground. “I—I do. I’m so sorry, Devi, I never meant to—” 

“Stop.” She cuts her friend off and tugs on Eleanor’s hand, pulling her to the couch and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “El, how could you ever think I would be mad at you for that?” 

Eleanor buries her face in her hands. “Two years, Devi. I—I shouldn’t feel like this. Not when you’re the one who saw him and liked him and—” 

Devi sighs. “Eleanor, Paxton could be the hottest, greatest guy in the world, and I still wouldn’t choose him over you. That’s 15 year old Devi, not 25 year old Devi. 25 year old Devi loves her friends the most.” 

“I’m so sorry, Devi,” Eleanor murmurs.

“Listen to me, Eleanor. You have nothing to be sorry for.” She reaches for Eleanor’s hand and squeezes it, firm. “You should go after him.” 

Eleanor’s head shoots up, and she stares at Devi in shock. “What?” she breathes. 

Devi grins. “You heard me. Go after him. I think he really likes you.” 

“But—but you just said—” Eleanor stammers out. 

She shrugs. “Yeah, but you like him. Like, you  _ actually _ like him.” A thought occurs to her. “What’s his favorite food?” 

“Sashimi,” Eleanor answers immediately. “But only the kind his grandfather makes.”

Devi reaches out and brushes back a strand of her friend’s hair. “Go after him, El. I want you to.” 

Eleanor looks a bit unconvinced, but nods. “I’m just—scared, Devi,” she whispers. 

“Of what?” 

“That he’ll see whatever it was in me that my mom saw and decided I wasn’t worth sticking around for,” Eleanor sobs. 

“Oh, Eleanor.” She pulls her friend in for a hug. “El, you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met. I love you, so much. You’re worth sticking around for. You’re worth  _ loving.” _

“Then why didn’t my mom?” 

(Devi rarely hates people. It’s exhausting and tedious. She doesn’t  _ like _ a lot of people, that’s true, but she rarely  _ hates _ them. Hate requires energy, and frankly, she’d rather spend that energy on positive emotions. But she hates Eleanor’s mother. Hates her with a visceral, hot sort of anger, the kind that flares up in your chest and makes you see red, the kind of anger that makes people prone to recklessness. And she’s already prone to that. Mostly, she hates Eleanor’s mother because she made Eleanor cry, and that—that makes every part of Devi  _ hurt.) _

“I’m so sorry I can’t tell you why, Eleanor,” she murmurs. 

“Is it bad that I miss her?” 

“You’re so much better of a person than she could ever hope to be, Eleanor. And I love you. I don’t ever plan on leaving you.” 

Eleanor starts crying, but soft, quiet tears, and every little sob she lets slip breaks Devi’s heart more and more. She wishes, viciously, that she could take El’s pain away. “I just wish I was enough.” 

“El,” Devi says, “listen to me.” 

She pulls away from her friend and wipes her tears away. “You are. I promise you are. You can’t deny yourself happiness because you’re worried about that. Fab and I have always thought you were enough. I know Paxton feels the same way. Fuck, Eleanor, your mom isn’t the rule. She’s the exception. Everyone who knows you loves you. She was just too selfish to see that. I promise you’re enough.” 

Eleanor swallows. “You believe that?” 

“I do.” 

She reaches out and pulls Eleanor into a hug, tight and almost suffocating, like she was wanted to ever since she heard her cry. “You’re my best friend in the world, Eleanor,” Devi murmurs. “You know everything about me, things even I don’t know. But I know you’re enough. You’re one of the best people I know.” 

Eleanor wraps her arms around Devi, and hugs her back. “I love you.” 

“I love you too, El.” 

(This, right here, Devi thinks, is more precious than anything any guy could give her.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the heart songs in this chapter are: "can't help falling in love" by elvis presley and "satisfied" from hamilton. you can find us on tumblr!
> 
> [leila](https://montygreen.tumblr.com)   
>  [bhargavi](https://parkersedith.tumblr.com)


	3. i know it ain't easy giving up your heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! welcome to the last chapter of our zep inspired au. we both had a great time writing this and we hope you enjoyed the plethora of rom-com tropes we included in this fic! be on the lookout for more fics coming from us (because we don't know the meaning of self-control) with more rom-com tropes. don't worry, by the way, this might start off a bit angsty, but it's all good at the end
> 
> much love from the both of us! enjoy!!!

Devi knows she’s going to have a shit day the moment she walks into her mother’s house and sees the look on her face. 

It’s stretched and sad and tired, in a way Devi has not seen it be for the past few years, except on the anniversary of her father’s death. It’s  _ heartbreaking, _ and Devi can feel her palms get clammy and her heart pound as she looks at her mom. 

“Mom?” she says. 

Her voice shakes. Her hands shake. 

(Her hands never shake when Ben is holding them, and she wishes he were here right now, so she might not have to face this alone.) 

Nalini sighs, heavy. “Come sit, kanna.” 

It’s—it’s horrifying, reminiscent of the way her mother and father had told her of her father’s illness when she was 13 years old, and Devi feels her heart pound in her chest as she sits at the dining table, across from her mom. 

She’s not losing her mom too, is she? Because—because she can’t, she can’t, oh god, she can’t lose one of the only other people in the world she knows she loves and who loved her father and—

“Devi.” 

Nalini’s hand on her arm interrupts her spiral of thoughts, and Devi’s so, so glad for it. “I need to talk to you about something.” 

There is a lump in her throat the size of a planet, massive, overwhelming. Consuming. 

She closes her eyes. “Are—are you—?” 

“No.” She opens her eyes to find her mom smiling at her, soft. “I’m ok, Devi. I’m not sick.” 

The weight lifts off her shoulders, massively, and she relaxes. Her hands still shake, but it is a leaf in the wind rather than an earthquake. “Oh, thank god,’ she breathes. “Thank god.” 

Nalini raises a hand and strokes Devi’s hair, something she’d started doing after her father had passed away. “I’m ok, kanna.” 

Devi clears her throat. “What did you want me to talk about?” 

The small smile on Nalini’s face disappears, and she looks away from Devi, sighing. Devi follows the line of her mother’s sight and notices she’s looking at a picture of the three of them, on the Santa Monica Pier.

“I’ve been thinking about selling the house.” 

When Devi was five years old, she was climbing the tree in front of her house—she’s looking at it right now, actually—when she slipped, and fell. Thankfully, she wasn’t very high up, so she didn’t break anything, but she still remembers what it felt like to fall on her back, as if every inch square inch of air was knocked out of her body. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t breathe. 

It’s the same way she feels right now. 

“Th—the house?” she manages to choke out. “You’re thinking about selling this house.” 

Nalini nods. “It’s just hard, Devi,” she sighs. “Living here, without your father.” She reaches a hand out and strokes Devi’s cheek. “Without you.” 

“You—you can’t,” she stammers. “You can’t sell the house.” 

Nalini sighs. “Devi, without your father, I don’t have much of a reason for staying here anymore. And I’m—thinking it might be best if I moved back to India. To be with family.” 

“Oh, and what? I’m not family enough for you?” 

“Devi,” Nalini murmurs, cupping her cheeks with her hands. “You are my only child. You are my  _ whole _ family. But I am not your whole family. You have a life here—a job, friends you adore. I don’t have anything without your father.” 

“So—so, you’re just gonna leave me,” Devi says, voice shaking. “You’re going to leave me and you’re going to get rid of the house.” 

“Nothing is cer—” 

_ “No!” _ Devi shrieks, pulling away from her mother and standing up, heaving. “You can’t! You can’t sell the house! Dad’s here.” 

“Devi—” 

“You want to forget him!” Devi accuses, her hands balling into fists. “You want to—to forget he ever existed.” 

Her mother’s face shifts, from sad to heartbroken, and it hurts Devi, it does, but right now she’s so mad she can’t  _ breathe. _

“Devi, how can you say that?”

“This house,” she says, voice shaking, “is all I have left of Dad. It’s all we have left of Dad. And it’s—it’s got a million memories of him you just want to throw away. How  _ could you?” _

“Your father—” 

“Dad would have never done this,” Devi says, trembling like a tree branch in a tornado. “He would have kept the house. He would have understood.” 

Nalini opens her mouth to say something again, but Devi doesn’t let her. “This house is everything to me. It’s—it’s all I have left of Dad. You have all the memories here with him. Why—why do you want to leave him? How can you even  _ think _ about leaving him? Dad would have stayed for you. If it was you who was gone. He would have stayed forever.” 

“Kanna, please, I—” 

_ “I wish you were the one who had died!” _

The second the words come out of her mouth, Devi wants to take them back, but she can’t, she can’t, she can’t. “Dad would have never done this to you. And you—you want to forget him. I hate you,” Devi spits. “I hate you.” 

She can’t bear to see the heartbroken look that crosses her mother’s face, can’t bear to handle and face what she’s just said, so Devi does the only thing she can do. She runs. 

Tearing out of the house—the house her mother wants to sell oh god she’s going to lose this the house she grew up in with her father and his smiles and their ping pong tournaments and everything good and happy and bright this house this house this  _ house— _

Devi runs. Away from her problems, like she always has. 

* * *

It takes her until the next morning to realize something is very,  _ very _ wrong with her. 

Because suddenly, instead of hearing  _ other _ people sing to her, Devi’s the one doing the singing, she’s the one pouring out her heart to everyone around her. 

This morning, she sang to Eleanor about how grateful she is to have her as a friend, and according to the look on Fabiola’s face, she’s just finished another song. About what, Devi literally doesn’t even want to think about. 

“Ok,” Ben says, curling his hands around Devi’s shoulders and guiding her away from her horrified boss-friend, “I think Devi’s having a bit of a tough day, Fab. Can you ask everyone to break for lunch?” 

Fabiola nods. “Of—of course, Ben,” she murmurs, shooting Devi another concerned look. 

“Ben,” Devi says, voice shaking. “What’s happening to me?” 

“Ok, ok,” Ben murmurs, gently tugging her away from the door. The floor is empty—thank god. “Let’s have a seat.” 

She lets him wrap an arm around her shoulders, and she can’t resist turning into him, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. 

“What’s going on?” she says again. 

Ben’s hands curl around her wrists and gently pull her hands away from her face, and she looks up to see him looking at her with more kindness and concern than she’s ever seen—even when he was singing to her. “Are you ok?” 

Devi swallows roughly. Can—can she tell him about what happened? 

(Of course she can. She knows she can trust Ben, she  _ does _ trust Ben. This—friendship, partnership, relationship of sorts—whatever she wants to call it, has been surprisingly easy to fall into. It is the missing piece of the puzzle she has been looking for her whole life. She was whole without him, but she is better  _ with _ him.) 

And looking into his eyes, she knows, she knows, she knows he has always been there for her. 

She takes his hands in hers, and she relishes in the way his hands curl around her own, naturally, easily. It’s an instinct for Ben’s hand to wrap around hers, an ease of movement that she adores. He knows what she needs without her even having to say it. He knows her better than she knows herself. 

She can’t stop herself from reaching up and smoothing her hand over his cheek, and it feels different than she thought it would, not soft, but slightly rough with stubble and—why did she imagine what his cheek would feel like, pressed against her palm? 

Looking into his eyes, she thinks she loses all ability to breathe. It’s always in Ben’s eyes that she finds herself spiraling into free fall, and it is with his hand in hers that she finds herself back on solid ground. It’s dizzying, the opposite extremes he makes her feel, but the longer she thinks about it, the more it makes sense. 

Ben’s snuck his way into her systems. He pumps in her veins just as much as blood does, he’s shot through the marrow of her bones, he’s spread through in the air in her lungs and made himself at home in the chambers of her heart. 

She rests her head on his shoulder, and although she mourns the loss of his eyes locked with hers, she breathes him in. 

Sandalwood and something undeniably him. Devi resists the urge to slide her arm around his waist and pull him in closer, to press against him until she can’t tell where he starts and she ends. 

And then, his voice breaks the silence. “Devi,” he murmurs, and his breath is warm against her forehead. “You just sang to me.” 

She jerks away from him instantly, hand slipping from his, pushing herself away from him. “W—what?” she gasps. 

“You just sang to me,” he repeats, slowly. 

Devi stands up, running her hands through her hair. “I—I did?” 

Ben nods, standing up as well. “Just—just now. When we were sitting here on the couch.” 

Devi swears. She never knows when she’s actually singing and—oh god, those thoughts.

She whirls around, unable to look him in the eyes. “What—what did I sing to you?” she whispers. 

He clears his throat, and she can hear him as he steps closer. “You said, “I dare you to let me be your, your one and only, I promise I'm worthy, to hold in your arms, so come on and give me the chance,” Devi.” 

Devi groans and buries her face in her hands. “Oh, god.” 

“Did—did you mean any of that?” he whispers. 

Her hands shake. “Ben, I don’t—I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she whines. 

Finally, she turns to face him, looks him in the eyes. It’s hard, so very, very hard, for her to do so, but she has to. “I don’t know what’s the problem.” 

Ben clenches his jaw and nods. “Ok. Forget it, Devi. It’s—it’s not a big deal.” 

(He’s lying, she knows he is, but he is setting his feelings aside to talk to her right now, and that means everything to her.) 

He steps forward, reaching out and taking her hand in his, once more. His thumb stroking the back of her palm, over and over again, helps quiet the nausea in her stomach, helps her feel a bit better. “Ok,” he murmurs. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?” 

“What makes you think something happened?” 

Ben’s other hand comes up and curls around her shoulder, giving it a brief, tight squeeze. “I’m your friend.” 

Devi looks up at him. “My mom wants to sell our house,” she says. “She wants to sell the house that—that she bought with my dad and that he raised me in and I’m so scared that if she sells it all the memories I have of him will be gone,” she says, the words spilling out of her. 

Ben gently pushes her back towards the chairs near the windows and lowers her into one, keeping his hand intertwined with hers the whole time. “You don’t want to lose your dad,” he says. 

“And—and she says she might move to India and I can’t lose her too, Ben, I  _ can’t _ ,” she sobs, wiping at the tear spilling out from her eyes with the back of her hand. 

(Devi hates crying, especially in front of other people, she hates breaking down, and she thinks it is weak, but crying in front of Ben—there is no weakness in that. Maybe it is because he has already seen the worst parts of her, the parts of her that scream and shout and hurt people. Maybe it is because he has seen the worst of her—and he chooses to stay anyways.) 

“And then I told her that—that I wished she was the one who died but I don’t, Ben, I don’t, and now I’m going to lose my mom too.” 

“Devi,” he says. “You’re not going to lose your mom.” 

She nods, heart in her throat, voice thick with tears. “I am. I know I am.” 

He sighs, heavy, eyes locking with hers. Even through the blur of her tears, she can see how devastatingly blue they are, how gorgeous they are. She latches onto them like one latches onto a light in the middle of a hurricane, a raft in a stormy sea, something to hold solidly in her hands. “You know I can’t fix this, Devi.” 

“What am I supposed to do, Ben?” she whispers. “I don’t know what to do.” 

Ben runs his hand down her back, soothing. His eyes don’t waver. “Yeah, you do.” 

“What if—if she doesn’t want to listen?” 

He cracks a smile then, unexpectedly soft and sweet. “You’ve still got to try, don’t you?” 

She repeats these words in her mind as she stands on the porch, hands shaking. She clasps them together, and yet, they still shake. 

_ (You’ve still got to try, _ his voice whispers.) 

Devi breathes in and climbs up the steps, turning the doorknob. 

“Mom?” she calls, stepping into the room. 

Nalini appears right away, shock on her face. “D—Devi. I wasn’t expecting you.” 

Devi nods stiffly. “Mom, can we—can we sit down?” 

Her mother takes a seat on the couch, pats the space next to her. “Of course, kanna.” 

Lowering herself onto the couch, Devi glances at the floor, unable to work up the courage to look her mom in the eyes as she says this. She tries to stay composed, tries to, but then her mother reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder and she can’t. 

“I’m so sorry, Mom,” she says, pressing a fist to her mouth. “I don’t wish you were the one who died. I didn’t mean that. I promise you, I didn’t mean that.” 

“It’s alright, Devi,” her mother murmurs. “Sometimes I also wish I was the one who had died.” 

She breaks down fully then, crying intense, wracking, heavy tears. “No, Mom, no, please.” 

“Shh, kanna,” her mother soothes, running her hand down her hair. “It’s alright. It’s ok.” 

Devi wraps her arms around her mother’s waist and buries her face in her neck. “I love you, Mom, I love you.” 

“I love you so much, Devi,” her mother says, and her voice is thick with tears. “I told you. You are my whole family.” 

Devi pulls away then, tears still on her face. “Do you mean that?” 

Nalini cups Devi’s face in her hands. “With every beat of my heart.” 

“Then why do you want to leave me?” Devi whispers. “Why do you want to leave Dad?” 

Nalini shakes her head. “It hurts, waking up in our bed without your father, Devi. It hurts every time I come home to an empty house. It hurts to breathe, sometimes, because I miss him so much. I just wanted to see if that pain would ease, a little.” 

“If you moved to India?” 

Her mother nods. “If I moved to India.” She pulls Devi closer, tucking her head underneath her chest like she’s a little kid, and Devi lets herself be held this way. “It won’t, though,” she whispers. 

“What do you mean?” 

“You were right, Devi. This house—it holds everything I have left of Mohan. Besides you.” 

She pulls away. “Besides me?” 

Her mother laughs then, unexpectedly, bright and clear. “You, Devi. You are the greatest thing your father left behind. Not some house, not some motorcycle. You. You are his greatest legacy.” She leans forward, pressing her lips to Devi’s forehead. “That is why I am keeping this house. For you.” 

“For me?” 

“For you. It is our home, and I know your father wouldn’t want me to leave. I know he wouldn’t want me to go to India and leave you behind. He would want us to be together. And I can’t bear to leave you.” 

She nods, smiling softly through her tears. “Please stay, Mom.” 

Nalini smiles, wiping away the tears on Devi’s cheek with her thumb. “Of course, Devi. Who else would stop you from doing ridiculous things otherwise? I’m your mother. I have to annoy you as I grow older.” 

Her sob is punctured with a laugh, and she leans forwards, drawing her mother in for a tight, tight hug. 

She feels like she can breathe a little easier, now. 

Devi is tired, when she finally reaches her apartment, is tired from crying and reminiscing with her mother, from pulling out old albums and recounting stories of her father. She is tired, but god, she is so, so much happier. 

She changes into her pajamas and digs out some leftovers from her fridge, turning on some stupid reality TV show as she curls up on the couch, underneath her blanket. Halfway through the show, next to her, her phone starts ringing. 

Devi sets her plate down and pauses the show before glancing at her phone, lips turning up in an unbidden smile as she sees it’s Ben. 

“Hey,” she says, picking up. 

“David,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice. “How do it be?” 

She rolls her eyes. “You’re such a drama queen, you know that?” 

“No more than Eleanor,” he snickers. 

“Fair enough.” 

There’s a beat of silence, but it’s comfortable instead of stifling, makes her think of the way the waves pull back into the ocean before they rise up again. “So,” he murmurs, quiet, and she imagines him sitting on his own couch. “How did it go with your mom?” 

She melts back into the cushions of the couch and closes her eyes, letting his voice wash over her. 

(Warm and thick, yet low, like bitter hot chocolate, and it soothes her in the same way the drink might, sliding down her throat, spreading heat throughout her body and pooling low in her stomach, setting her afire from the inside out.) 

“Good,” she whispers. “You were right, Gross. We just needed to talk. She’s going to stay. And she’s not selling the house.” 

“And she doesn’t hate you, does she?” 

“No,” Devi murmurs. Her fingers flex on the blanket, searching for his. “She doesn’t.” 

“I’m glad.” 

She laughs, curling her feet up under her on the couch. “What, no quip about how you’re always right?” 

“Nah,” he says, easy. “You knew what you had to do. You just needed a little push.” 

Devi swallows roughly, picking at the blanket. “How did you know that?” 

“Because, Devi,” Ben says. “I know you. When it comes down to it, you always do the right thing. That’s just the kind of person you are.” 

“You have such faith in me, Gross,” she teases. 

“Yeah,” he answers, soft, and simple. “I do. That’s what you have, in your friends.” 

(In your friends. Right.) 

Her hand aches, feels empty without his, and Devi closes her eyes, tipping her head up towards the ceiling. “So, how was your day?” 

He immediately launches into an explanation of the wacky shit that happened at work today, but Devi doesn’t pay attention to the words, more to the fact that he’s saying it. 

She closes her eyes tight, and she can  _ see _ him in front of her, so clearly, a smile crossing his lips, eyes sparkling beautifully. She can see him right next to her, sitting across from her on the couch, she can feel as he reaches over to take her hand in his. She can feel him, every inch of him, and she knows he is the realest thing to her, right now. 

(Devi wishes there was a way to describe what his smile does to her. That there were words in the English language that properly spoke of the curve of his lips, almost like the sun, breaking over the horizon. She wishes there was a way to describe how badly she wants him to press his smile into the palm of her hand. She wants it the same way the waves want to crash against the rocks, a collision of diametric opposites, drawn to one another.) 

And then she opens her eyes, and he’s not there, and she thinks her heart shatters in her chest. 

Devi’s throat closes up, and she blinks back tears at the realization he’s not sitting across from her, that she can’t lean over and press her smile against his, have her hands dive into his hair and have his arms wrap around her waist. 

She wants that. 

(She wants all of it, to wake up next to him and to tangle their legs together. She wants to lace their fingers together and kiss on top of bridges and laugh and steal Chinese food from one another. She wants to rest her head on his shoulder and kiss his fingertips and wrinkle her nose when he kisses her cheek. She wants him, in all the ways you can want someone, she wants him.) 

“Oh,” he says, pulling her out of her thoughts, “and I went on another date. I stopped seeing Shira.” 

Devi blinks twice. “Wh—what? You went on a date?” 

He laughs. “Well, you know. Had to try to move on, right?” 

(No, her heart begs. Please, don’t move on from me.)

She’s lost her chance. “How did it go?” 

“Eh,” he murmurs. “She was nice. I don’t know. I think it went ok.” 

“Are you going to go out with her again?” 

(Please don’t.) 

“We’ll see,” he says. “I don’t know, I guess I just—wanted to see if we had anything.” 

She grips the phone tighter and tries not to cry. She wants to tell him that—that  _ they _ have something, that they’re good together. 

For a second she remembers what Ben had told her, that she was—was never meant to know about his feelings, and she has never been more grateful for her powers than in this moment, because they led her to Ben, and she cannot imagine her life without him. His heart song hadn’t been a disaster, like she thought. It had been exactly what she needed. 

(What about  _ her _ heart song?) 

The heart song—oh god, the heart song. It had just told her everything she had been too stupid to realize, before. 

Why she  _ aches _ for him, why he’s the first person she wants to tell when something important happens, why she trusts him, why she knows he’s always going to be there for her, why his laugh is her favorite sound in the world, why she hates the idea of him with anyone else, why every time he touches her she gets a little faint, a little dizzy, and yet, his skin against hers is her favorite thing, the heart song had told her  _ why. _

She has feelings, real, deep,  _ emotional feelings, _ for Ben. 

And he’s moving on. 

* * *

Devi answers the knock on her apartment door wearing a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, wool blanket draped around her shoulders like a cape, hands wrapped around a small tub of rocky road ice cream.

Eleanor and Fabiola’s faces fall when they see her state of dress. “Oh no,” Fabiola says, sympathetically, reaching out to lay a hand on Devi’s arm.

“You’re wallowing,” Eleanor adds, the concern in her expression growing. “You only ever eat directly out of the tub when you’re wallowing.” She raises an eyebrow. “Why are you wallowing?”

Devi steps aside to let Eleanor and Fabiola in and immediately flops down on her couch, shoving another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. She laughs bitterly. The sound is broken, brittle. “Eleanor, you were right.”

Eleanor frowns slightly. “I—I was right?”

“I didn’t want Ben to move on from me,” Devi clarifies.

(Fuck, she’s gonna cry just thinking about it. Is this heartbreak? Is this what it felt like to have your heart ripped right out from your chest? Devi knows that you can’t survive without a heart, that it’s not anatomically possible, but heartbreak  _ is _ a condition. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, she remembers, from her reading. Broken heart syndrome, brought on by intense emotional distress. The heart’s main chamber changes shape, affecting its ability to pump blood effectively, and, well, it’s perfectly applicable to her right now, because it feels like her heart is squeezing, shrinking in her chest. It is a sickness. Just because she can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. That’s the thing, about love and pain. Neither are tangible, and neither can be ignored when felt.) 

Eleanor takes a seat on her left and Fabiola sits on her right. Neither say anything, they just each place a comforting hand on her arm.

“It’s just him saying it out loud made it so much more real, you know?”

Fabiola rubs a hand up and down her arm, the motion comforting. Soothing. “Why didn’t you want him to move on?”

“I don’t know,” Devi says, shaking her head.

“I think you do,” Fabiola prompts.

“No.” Devi shakes her head more aggressively. “I don’t.”

“Oh, cut the crap, Devi!” Eleanor yells out.

Devi blinks several times, confused by Eleanor’s sudden change in demeanor. “What?” 

Eleanor lets out a deep breath. “Let’s try something else.” She purses her lips and taps her chin as she thinks.“What’s your favorite movie?” she asks.

Devi snaps her head in Eleanor’s direction. “What? Why the hell is that relevant, El?”

Eleanor’s gaze turns serious and she wags a finger. “Just trust me, ok? Your problem is, Devi, for someone so emotional and reckless, you get too caught up in your own head sometimes. You need to answer from your  _ heart. _ So, just answer the questions I ask with the first thing that pops into your mind.” 

Devi nods her head a little shakily. “Alright.” She sniffles and eats another spoonful of ice cream. “Shoot.”

“Favorite movie?”

“ _ 10 Things I Hate About You _ .”

“Favorite food?”

“Samosas.”

Fabiola joins in. “Favorite color?”

“Teal.”

“Did you ever really hate Ben?” Eleanor asks.

“No.”

“Are you in love with him?

“Yes,” Devi answers, before realizing when she just admitted and clamping a hand over her mouth. 

(Oh god, she’s  _ in love _ with him. The kind of love that fills sonnets and recital halls, the kind of love that births poetry and sculptures and art and the kind of love that—that she has always wanted, but always thought, just a little bit, that she never deserved.) 

Fabiola smiles kindly. “I think that’s your answer.”

Devi sets the carton of ice cream down on the coffee table and pulls the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. “What do I do?”

Eleanor’s voice turns gentle again. “It’s a little obvious what you have to do, Devi.”

“You have to tell him,” Fabiola says.

Devi shakes her head. “I can’t.” She shakes her head more firmly. “I can’t. He’s moved on and I can’t put him in that position. I don’t want Ben to feel—” she pauses trying to find the right word. “Obligated to me, or something.”

Fabiola shakes her head and clicks her tongue. “That’s not why you don’t want to tell him.” She runs her hand up and down Devi’s arm. “You’re afraid of losing him.”

(Fabiola is completely right and Devi hates it. She fears losing Ben more than anything, even just his friendship and the calming, reassuring grip of his hands.)

“Devi,” Eleanor breathes. “You know how he feels—hell, you know how everyone feels—he deserves to know how you feel, don’t you think?”

Fabiola tosses Eleanor a confused look, but refocuses back on Devi, saying, “El is right, Devi, he deserves to know.”

“I’m not ready.” Devi sniffles. “I just—I can’t risk it.” 

(She’s—she  _ can’t _ lose him. And Devi can only imagine how angry he is with her, dragging him back when he’s trying to move on. She’s never deserved Ben, not ever, and it stuns her because it seems like it should be the other way around, when really, he had given her his heart and she had refused to give him hers, without knowing it was already his.) 

“You are ready, Devi,” Eleanor reassures her.

“And we’ll both be here for you if you need us,” Fabiola adds.

Devi sniffles again. “I love you guys so, so much.”

“We love you too, Devi,” El and Fab repeat in unison before wrapping her in a hug.

Devi hugs them back, having endless appreciation for her friends at this moment, and hoping she’s summoned enough courage to do what she knows she needs to do.

* * *

Ben is exactly where she expects him to be. 

She knocks on the door of his apartment first—having traded her hoodie, sweatpants, and woollen cape-like blanket for more suitable clothing—and when he doesn’t answer she knows exactly where he is. Work.

When she steps into the office she finds him hunched over his desk, furiously typing on his keyboard. “Ben?” she calls out cautiously.

Upon hearing her voice he looks up and smiles brightly. “Devi, hi. What are you doing here?”

She steps towards him. “Can I talk to you about something?” She clasps her hands nervously, Eleanor and Fabiola’s words echoing on repeat in her head.  _ He deserves to know. _

His bright smile transforms into a softer, more muted one, the one she knows he reserves for her. “Yeah, of course.” He stands up from his seat and steps closer to her. 

“I—uh—I need to tell you something and I know my timing is absolutely terrible, but you deserve to know so.”

Ben looks at her in alarm. “What do you need to tell me?” he asks.

Devi steels her nerves and takes several deep breaths, but she still can’t quite breathe properly, so she takes his hands. 

(His hands are in hers and suddenly everything is a little easier.) 

She clears her throat and swallows the lump that’s beginning to form. “I love you,” she breathes. “I’m in love with you and I think I have been for a little bit now, but it took me literally singing my feelings out loud for me to fully realize what it meant.” She laughs, grip tightening on his hands. “Eleanor calls the songs I hear “heart songs” and now I finally get why.” She looks him more fully in the eyes. “It’s because they’re about what your heart wants and what my heart wants most is you.” 

Ben doesn’t speak and Devi suddenly remembers a sobering fact. “I’m sorry,” she says shaking her head. “I know my timing sucks, like, it’s beyond horrible because you’ve moved on and—”

Ben cuts her off, hands tightening around hers. “I haven’t moved on.”

Devi gapes. “What?”

“I haven’t moved on,” he repeats. “I tried really, really hard to, but you’ve kinda ruined me.” He laughs and grins sheepishly. “I had three separate dates call me out on it. Apparently, I wouldn’t shut up about you.”

Devi huffs a laugh. “Oh,” she breathes, smiling widely. “Well, I have trouble shutting up about you, too.”

Ben beams at her, his eyes crinkling. “I always knew you were obsessed with me, Dav—”

Devi cuts him off, leaning up on her tiptoes to press her lips to his.

He’s still for a brief second and in that moment Devi feels she’s made a terrible mistake that she can never come back from. But those worries evaporate when he begins to kiss her back. His lips are soft, softer than she imagined even, and his hands splay across her back, pulling her impossibly closer. In turn, she wraps her arms around his neck, pressing herself even closer, stroking the hair at the nape of his neck.

She’d dreamt about what it would be like to kiss him for the first time, dreamt what it would feel like to have his smile pressed against hers, but this is beyond anything she could have imagined. Because before she didn’t have any of her senses, but now, she is overwhelmed with him, not in a vicious or violent way, but the way you are consumed with sunlight on a cloudless day. He floods all of her senses: the way he tastes, like spearmint, the soft, soft brush of his hair against her hands, the groan that rumbles from his chest when she steps impossibly closer, the smell of his cologne, sandalwood, and even the sight of him, blue eyes flashing in her mind as she kisses him. 

Ben has always been a dichotomy to her, between familiarity and the unknown, between balance and freefall, and kissing him only intensifies this feeling. His hands pulling her close are steady and sustaining, secure and stabilizing, but his lips finally, finally on hers are freeing too. She feels like she’s soaring through the sky, drifting past the clouds, floating among the stars. While it may seem contradictory, the polarity makes perfect sense to her, because opposite forces are always attracted to one another.

He deepens the kiss, sweeping his tongue into her mouth and she bites back a moan when his fingers flex at her waist, tugging her closer to him. Kissing him is addictive, more intoxicating than any alcohol she’s ever drunk. 

(Like that night of the gala, his arm wraps around her waist and pulls her closer, but this time, she has no qualms about him letting her go. This time, he chooses to keep her close, and when she blinks, she will still be right here, in the circle of his arms.) 

Ben’s hand skims up her side and cups her jaw, and she can’t help but sigh into his mouth at the brush of his gently calloused fingers against her cheek. She’s never been kissed like this before, slowly, like she was something to be savored, to be enjoyed. Ben kisses her and she feels like time is unspooling before her, long and soft and lazy, like Sunday mornings. He kisses her and it’s the only thing she wants for the rest of her life.

She melts into him, the world around her fading away, only being thrust back into reality when he reluctantly pulls away from her, giving her space to breathe.

When she finally catches her breath, she says, “No more than you are with me.”

Ben smiles at her, his voice coming out low and roughened and _ holy fuck, _ she did that. “That’s a fair point,” he agrees. 

Devi bobbles her head, smirking at him and only then does he realize what he just said. “No, wait!”

She laughs softly. “I’m never letting you take that back,”

“Hmm,” Ben hums, arms still wrapped around her. He leans in and kisses her again, soft and slow, and she can’t help but melt completely into him, biting back a groan of protest when he pulls away. “I don’t think I want to,” he admits, smoothing his thumb against her cheekbone. “You probably don’t need me to tell you this, because according to what you told me, I’ve sung this to you twice, but—” He pauses to just look at her, eyes filled with adoration, devotion and affection. “I’m in love with you too.” 

(He  _ chose _ to tell her, though, and so it matters. She needed him to tell her.) 

Devi snorts and playfully rolls her eyes. “You’re right, I did already know that.”

Ben tightens his arms around her. “There is something you don’t know, though.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I know everything.”

His eyes glint mischievously. “Everything, huh?” he asks, a smirk blooming across his face. “You know why?”

“Why you’re…” Devi trails off looking up at him expectantly.

“Why I’m in love with you.” He brushes his thumb against her bottom lip causing her to shiver. “What I love about you.”

“Yup,” Devi quips with a smirk. “I know that too, I can hear all your deepest thoughts through musical numbers, remember? That’s how this whole thing started.” She peers up at him through her eyelashes, her voice growing soft and hushed. “I wouldn’t mind if you told me again, though.”

Ben tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Everything,” he whispers. “I love how smart you are, I love how determined and motivated you are, even when it’s to destroy me in competition. I love that you’re my equal,” he says, laughing. “I think you’re the only person in the world who can keep up with me. You’re the only person I want to keep up with me.” He swallows nervously. “But mostly, it’s because you’re the strongest person I know in every way imaginable.” He cocks his head. “Did you know all of that already?”

“No,” she admits, shaking her head but unable to keep a stupid grin off her face. “How long have you felt like that?” she asks.

She expects the answer to be maybe two months, maybe more recent.

“Two years,” Ben answers.

“Two years?” Devi asks, mouth falling agape.

“I have been in love with you since you marched into this office and took control of your first project.”

Devi presses in closer and loops her arms around his neck. “You could have just asked me out, you know? Instead of antagonizing me and competing with me for two straight years.”

“I could have,” Ben agrees. He leans in to press his forehead to hers and laughs, his breath ghosting her lips. “You liked it though.”

Devi leans up and kisses him again, just because she can.

“Yeah, I did,” she says, swiping the pad of her thumb against his bottom lip. “I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heart songs in this chapter: "one and only" by adele come talk to us about the show! you can find us on tumblr:
> 
> [leila](https://montygreen.tumblr.com)   
>  [bhargavi](https://parkersedith.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> heart songs in this chapter: "i think i love you" by the partridge family and "the sound of silence" by simon and garfunkel. come talk to us about the show! you can find us on tumblr:
> 
> [leila](https://montygreen.tumblr.com)   
>  [bhargavi](https://parkersedith.tumblr.com)


End file.
